


1978

by carryonstarkid



Series: Full Circle [1]
Category: Gallagher Girls Series - Ally Carter
Genre: Gen, God's wrath, Nebraskan baseball, a boy missing his mama, about twenty years of hurt, boys smoking where they're not supposed to, charming smiles, gratuitous use of nicknames, more farm metaphors than you can shake a stick at, no small amount of prayer, quite a bit more Army than anyone was expecting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:01:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 23,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24031714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carryonstarkid/pseuds/carryonstarkid
Summary: Every international superspy has to start somewhere, and Matthew Morgan starts at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
Series: Full Circle [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1878064
Comments: 24
Kudos: 66





	1. Chapter 1

He can’t see much of anything in the mountains.

If a person stands at one end of Nebraska then they can, conceivably, see all the way to the other end without much strain. There might be a forest along the way that blocks the view, or maybe they get caught up in the occasional field of roadside sunflowers, but generally speaking: if there’s a big enough tornado in Omaha, then it’s likely to be seen from Hay Springs. Which is good, considering the fact that Hay Springs ain’t got much to offer by way of sightseeing.

South Carolina is different. South Carolina is very, very different. This state is effortlessly devoured by its own darkness. Earth towers beyond the edge of sight. Rock overtakes even the stars as the mountains embrace the night, the inky absence somehow bleeding into his very eyes. The only respite exists in the form of fleeting glances, granted by the crescent moon as it casts a stark white glow against the tops of distant, blackened trees. But then the Appalachia consumes him once more and he returns to a void in which the shadows are his only company.

An intimately distant silence sinks deeper into every mindless second, filling him with this inexplicable urge to fall. Just fall. Because at least if he fell, he might reach some sort of edge to this vast nothingness and finally find peace among the vertiginous unknown. 

His own insignificance is transparent. His meager existence means nothing to the mountains. He sits silently in the emptiness, encompassed by the inevitability of an eventual and finite end.

It’s the squeal of the brakes that keys him back into the moment, tires crunching over a rough gravel drive. The slower the bus gets, the faster his heart races, beat, beat, beating against the backs of his eardrums. There’s the slightest sense of shuffling around him—shoulders straightening, toes tapping, and the occasional courageous zipper. The bus settles with a hiss that cuts through the dense discomfort, and there’s no going back now.

The lights flicker on above him and Matthew Morgan sees his own reflection staring back at him.

He’s a sight for sore eyes, which is probably for the better considering the fact that _sore eyes_ is exactly what tends to accompany the sudden interruption of 41 consecutive minutes in absolute darkness. Between the squinting and the stretching, he doesn’t even have time to wonder what the _Hell_ he’s doing here before the doors at the beginning of the aisle rattle open.

That part will come later. The wondering. And it’ll never stop coming, he’s sure.

But for now, there’s a man at the front of the bus who demands every ounce of attention that Matt’s ever known himself to have. He’s dressed in the same olive green garb that Matt’s seen buried away at the back of his father’s closet, except that this gentleman also wears a very tall, very round hat. 

“Alright, listen up.” His voice seems to echo before it even leaves his mouth. “I am a drill sergeant. Anyone you see wearing this hat is a drill sergeant. From now on, the last three words out of your mouth will either be ‘Yes Drill Sergeant’ or ‘No Drill Sergeant.’ Do you understand?”

The chorus of voices answers before Matt fully understands what’s being said, sharp and short and synchronized. “Yes Drill Sergeant.”

The man continues on without so much as an acknowledgement. He’s not quite bored, but he is well practiced. This ain’t the first time he’s given this speech, and it won’t be his last. “On behalf of the United States Army and your Commander-In-Chief President Carter, welcome to Fort Jackson, South Carolina.”

The bus is split into freezers and fiddlers—folks either too scared to move, or too scared to stop. Matt finds himself leaning more towards the former than the latter, with sole exception of the steady tap of his fingertip against his pack.

The drill sergeant rolls through his orders as though he’s got someplace better to be. As though he knows how to move mountains. “Here’s what’s gonna happen: first, when I tell you to get off my bus, females will exit first and stand on the vertical yellow lines to the left. Males, you will stand on the vertical yellow lines to the right, do you understand?”

Matt stumbles over his words this time, barely managing to spit out a, “Yes, sir,” among the surrounding chant of, “Yes Drill Sergeant.”

“Your bags will be in your left hand. Your paperwork will be in your right hand. Do you understand?”

“Yes Drill Sergeant.”

Nailed it.

“Bags: left. Paperwork: right. Women: left. Men: right. You will have both of your heels together on the yellow vertical line. Do you understand?”

“Yes Drill Sergeant.”

“You have two minutes to get off my bus— _go_.”

In the same moment that the drill sergeant exits the bus, twenty-seven recruits rise from their seats with the kind of urgency and determination that only comes from very tall men giving very loud instructions. Matt’s closer to the back of the bus than he is to the front, but even so, he’s able to slide into the aisle in a matter of moments. Everything empties at a brisk pace compared to the usual inconvenient shuffle that he’s used to back home. It’s nine, ten, eleven steps before the rumble of an idling bus gives way to the yelling outside.

More booming voices call to the crowd with demands of quickness and efficiency. Move. Let’s go. Faster. There is no welcome. There is no hello. Just a whole handful of new drill sergeants who look identical to the first, screaming in his ear and determined to tell him that he isn’t good enough. That none of them are. And to get on the _damn_ yellow line.

Boys file in front of him. More file behind. Round white lights blaze across the pavement, casting day across night, and the kid in front of Matt isn’t quite tall enough to block their glare. Drill sergeants are even louder when they’re standing on concrete, and the cacophony leaves him with the distinct and constant impression that he’s doing something—everything—wrong. 

Oh, God. What has he gotten himself into?

It’s an actual prayer. Admittedly, those are pretty rare for him these days, which is a fact that seems especially inconvenient in the chill of that October evening. He thinks back on all the skipped Sundays. All the missed bible studies. All of the homilies he didn’t pay enough attention to. He’s cashing in on every last moment of his faith, and he can’t help but feel like maybe he’s coming up a little short on change.

One of the drill sergeants hones in on a boy that’s just a few feet back, screaming about posture and pride and a hundred other things. The boy replies with a clear, “Yes Drill Sergeant,” and Matt figures he could never be so brave.

Above all else, Matt only wants one, singular thing: he wants to blend in.

So he sinks into himself. He manifests invisibility. The drill sergeants weave through the ranks, ready to tear into the tiniest tick, but Matt doesn’t move. He doesn’t shift. In those moments, he’s not a boy from Nebraska. He’s not some kind of future soldier. He’s not even Matthew Morgan. He just is, absently and purposelessly existing.

They tear into the kid in front of him. About thirty seconds later, they take a turn with the guy at his back. Matt, somehow, manages to go unnoticed.

It’s that first drill sergeant who brings them all back, a flock of vultures flying back to their nest at the center of the platform. On the bus, he had been all strict and square and solid, but now, legs apart and hands clutched at his back, he seems looser.

Matt learns that night that there are many terrifying things in the world. The top of that list is a grinning drill sergeant.

At his rear, the bus hisses and the doors click shut. A strange sense of yearning lands at the center of Matt’s chest as he hears it drive away and then, with delight in his tone, the drill sergeant says, “Ladies. Gentlemen. Welcome to Boot Camp.”


	2. Chapter 2

Yes Drill Sergeant.

Sometimes it’s better to lay low.

No Drill Sergeant.

It’s easier, now that all of them look exactly the same. Same uniform. Same haircut. Same expression of dread.

Yes Drill Sergeant.

Frost settles on the ground at his feet, on the very top of his breath, on the tips of his ears. Stark shadows stretch across the grass. The sun hasn’t even started to shine on the new day, and it won’t for another hour, but that does little to deter the overall sense of early morning panic. Matt is now one in a group of fifty, each of them standing at the front of their new facility with nothing but an Army-issued duffle and a strict order to hold it high above their heads.

The cold cracks along his fingertips as he raises his bag to the starry sky, but it isn’t long before all of the chill in his body is replaced with heat. In his chest. In his shoulders. In his neck. His own heartbeat crawls up his arms and his breath catches the building’s cool white light. Icy air scratches at the back of his throat.

No Drill Sergeant.

It really ain’t that bad.

No Drill Sergeant.

Maybe if he just holds perfectly still.

Yes Drill Sergeant.

Usually when he wakes up before dawn to throw forty pounds over his head, he’s at least allowed a decent cup of coffee beforehand. This isn’t like that, but it is close. It almost reminds him of all those mornings spent doing his chores on the farm. The only real difference is that the hay has been replaced with clothes, and the cows have been replaced with terrifying, screaming men. 

There’s something to be said about the chickens, too, but it ain’t very kindly and so Matt won’t say it. 

Voices echo across the yard, most of them mean, and monotone, and all blended together. He can’t differentiate one drill sergeant from the last, but he’s not willing to risk a glance around for a better look. Eyes forward, chest up, Matt can only hear the shaken responses of his fellow recruits.

Yes Drill Sergeant.

A boy from Pennsylvania hangs his head.

Yes Drill Sergeant.

A kid who wouldn’t stop bragging about New York City tries to rest his bag on his shoulders.

No Drill Sergeant.

Not one, but two drill sergeants plow toward the NYC kid, as though they’re racing for the opportunity to tear him to shreds. They must decide that it’s a draw, because both of them yell and scream with all of their red-faced might. Sometimes they’re yelling the same thing. Sometimes they’re yelling the opposite. Sometimes it’s impossible to tell what either of them is saying because by the time one is done, the other is just beginning, and they don’t seem to care who is giving which orders, just as long as they get to do so from no more than two inches away.

Matt begins to feel the strain in his own strength, but he’s not interested in a firsthand viewing of the display in front of him, so he forces his shoulders through the pain. The crisp morning air is now a welcome relief against rosy skin as sweat slides down his forehead.

No Drill Sergeant.

It really comes down to two options.

Yes Drill Sergeant.

Keep steady, or get spotted.

Yes Drill Sergeant.

Sometimes it’s better to lay low. Sometimes he doesn’t know the answer in math class, or he doesn’t want to set the table for company. Matt’s learned that life will hand him plenty of opportunities for attention, but more importantly, that sometimes it’s best not to take them. 

But his bag is getting heavier by the second and he can’t stop thinking about how they issued him two pairs of boots. Not just one. Two. The first pair are currently tied tight on his feet, far from broken in, which means that the second pair are digging into his left palm, and sagging quickly. He suspects he may be starting to lean.

Yes Drill Sergeant.

He would do just about anything to put this bag down, even if only for a second.

Yes Drill Sergeant.

His arms are beginning to scream louder than anyone around him.

Yes Drill Sergeant.

He feels the thud of a bag land at his feet and for a moment he fears it may be his own. The drill sergeants seem to lock eyes on him, charging with a gleeful sort of anger that simply doesn’t exist in Nebraska. His heart races, sweat pooling in his palms as they head straight for him, and Matt preps himself for the most thorough verbal beating that the United States Armed Forces can offer.

But one of the drill sergeants just knocks his elbow as they walk by, and Matt realizes that, despite the many protests in his back, his own bag is still high above his head. 

“Are you out of your _entire_ mind, Private?”

“No Drill Sergeant.”

It is with no small amount of relief that Matt sneaks a glance to his left. It’s a barely there, quick-off-the-draw kind of look, but it’s enough to spot the shadow of the boy next to him, devoured by the darkness of three seething drill sergeants.

“Pick it up,” one says.

“Drop down,” says another.

“You heard him, Private.”

It’s impossible to follow, both in the mind and in the body.

“I said to pick it _up_.”

“You think this is a game?”

“Pick up the bag, Private.”

“Yes Drill Sergeant.”

But even as the boy grabs his bag, the drill sergeants still have plenty more to say. Even after he swings it back above his head, they still bury him in questions that aren’t supposed to be answered, in profanities that aren’t meant to be said, and in promises that Matt hopes they won’t keep. One of them even gives the bag a good shove, and it falls once again. There is no second chance, and they won’t be laying off anytime soon.

They’ve got him on the ground now, counting pushups. One, two, three: one. One, two, three: two. When a fourth drill sergeant joins in on the screaming, something twists in Matt’s chest—not quite right. Not quite settled. It’s four-against-one now and those hardly seem like fair odds, even in a place like this. 

Sometimes it’s better to lay low. Then again, sometimes it’s not.

His shoulders feel raw and there’s a single drop of sweat that scrapes down his spine. His fingers are sore down to the very last knuckle and his grip is slipping anyway. Back home, this is when he might wrap up for the morning. Head inside, grab some bacon. Maybe peel open the latest issue of _Superman_ while his pops hogs the Sunday funnies. Except this ain’t his mama’s kitchen, and no one’s gonna fly in to save the day. It’s just him, his neighbor, four drill sergeants, and a bag that he really should have been more strategic about packing.

Since the moment he first arrived at Fort Jackson, he’s hesitated with every movement, every word, every breath, for fear that he might summon the full fury of a nearby drill sergeant. But this time, he doesn’t hesitate. This time, he knows he’s right.

And so Matthew Morgan allows his duffle to fall.

There’s an instant sense of relief as blood returns to his fingers, but it doesn’t last long. Quicker than Matt can even catch his breath, two of the nearby drill sergeants pounce on him, and now it’s his turn to be screamed at, sworn at, scorned. The cool sting of adrenaline shoots through his blood and nothing else exists except for the sheer volume of the men surrounding him.

One of them is at his back, breathing against his neck and yelling directly into his ear. The other has somehow mistaken the inch of distance between them for the length of an entire football field. He has no idea what they’re saying because, despite what conventional wisdom had led him to believe, it’s actually much harder to hear people who are that close to him. And even if he could hear them, their words overlap far too much to form any coherent sentence.

He doesn’t know how long it goes on for. Everything here feels fast and slow at the same time. Dense. As though so much more can happen in a single, stagnant second. It’s all he can do to sputter out his own, “Yes Drill Sergeant,” before he’s on the ground too, counting his push ups. One, two, three: one. One, two, three: two. 

His arms take on the exact same integrity of his mama’s Jell-O salad, and that thought only adds to the bile that’s currently bubbling in his stomach. One, two, three: three. One, two, three: four.

Before he can get to five, he’s being ushered back onto his feet and told to move, move, _move_. He vaguely overhears someone shout that they have three minutes to find their bunks, and so Matt slings his bag over his shoulder and starts in a sprint. He’s not sure where he’s going. He’s not sure that any of them know. But he sure as Hell ain’t staying on that front lawn.

The voices of the drill sergeants fade with distance. His breath stalls the longer he keeps going. He’s never been a runner.

“Thanks.” He startles at the word, not because it is loud, but because it is quiet. The boy with the dropped bag pulls up to Matt’s side and matches pace. “You’re an idiot,” he says. “But thanks.”

Matt’s words are stuck somewhere between his lungs and his throat, but that’s okay, because the boy doesn’t stick around long enough to hear them. He just takes off ahead of the pack, leaving Matt to revisit the density of time as he comes to terms with just how long these next few months are going to be. 


	3. Chapter 3

“We’ll race ya there.”

“Dream on.”

“What’s the matter, Morgan? Scared you’ll lose?”

“Ain’t scared I’ll lose. I _know_ I’ll lose, and that’s an important distinction.”

“Yeah, we know. Why d’you think we’re offering a race?”

Fort Jackson is the kind of place where it’s easy to make friends, not as the result of want, but rather, as the result of proximity. There are 32 guys in Matt’s platoon and he spends his entire life eating, sleeping, breathing, sweating, and screaming with them. It’s high pressure. Dire risk. Friendship isn’t an effort under these conditions; it’s an inevitability.

He suspects it’s built this way on purpose. Basic Training just ain’t meant to be done alone. There’s too much yelling, too many push ups, and not nearly enough farm fresh food like his mama makes. Every day he wakes up, aching from the night before. Every night his head hits the pillow with delirious exhaustion. The only thing that gets him through it all, is knowing that there are 31 other guys doing the exact same thing. This place makes strangers feel like family.

So far, if he has a brother, it’s Monty. His hand lands on Matt’s shoulder, just the same as it does when he slides down from the top bunk every morning, or when they’re standing side-by-side in the chow line, or any other time they’re within a reachable distance of one another. He’s got that thickness to his voice that comes from the southernmost parts of Louisiana, but he’s light on his feet, and his smile melts like butter on a hot summer evening. “Ain’t no shame in losing, y’know.”

“No,” Matt allows, because he’s learned it about his bunkmate that it’s usually best to agree with him. Or, at the very least, quicker. “The shame comes after. When you and Fitz spend ten minutes ragging on me.”

Fitz is only a few steps ahead of them, but he spins at the accusation. His years as the only son of Texas’ most prominent state senator leaves a faint trace of diplomacy in his gestures, but Matt doesn’t dare say so, because Fitz hates his father almost as much as he hates morning drills. “I’m hurt,” he says, walking backward on his heels as the three of them trudge through the dewy grass. “Y’all really think I only have ten minutes of material?”

“He’s right,” says Monty. “We’ll be raggin’ on you for way longer than ten minutes.”

“And you still can’t figure out why I might not wanna race?”

Monty starts on a rebuttal, but he’s interrupted before he can get a full word out. Through the cool air of the early AM, they hear the familiar voice of a drill sergeant calling out to them. “Let’s move, Privates!”

All three of them answer with an identical, “Yes Drill Sergeant,” as they pick up the pace.

Fitz, facing the right way once again, lets out a bold laugh. It’s contagious, but Matt isn’t yet brave enough to laugh at an official order. “Doesn’t look like we get a choice.”

“I don’t see him movin’ much,” Monty grumbles. “Why don’t the drill sergeants ever gotta run nowhere?”

Matt’s words come out in huffs. “Dunno.” he says. “Maybe go ask him?”

The three of them grin. This whole thing is easier when he’s got folks to grin with.

The next stop in their carefully regimented morning schedule is just past the forested side of the chow hall where the mountaintops give way to valley and the sun peeks over the horizon. The very top of this particular hill is the home of everyone’s most resented obstacle course, not because it is any more difficult than the rest, but because they run through it far more frequently.

Fitz swears that it’s the most committed relationship he’s ever been in. Monty’s taken to calling the course “Fredo” on account of how it’s stupid as all get out, and how it’s always breaking his heart.

Matt, for his part, doesn’t mind the course so much as he minds the Drill Sergeants with stopwatches. Inclined walls and rope ladders, he can handle. Rope climbing and mud crawling. Hell, back home he used to swing from barn rafters, just to see if he could, but he never had to do it in less than fourteen minutes. He never felt his heart beat so hard, so fast, while at the same time, someone screamed that he wasn’t moving fast enough.

Fitz finds it funny. “Keep up, Morgan.”

Monty keeps at Matt’s pace, even though he could probably lead the pack. “Ay Fitz, save the sweet talkin’ for your mother.”

“How about I save it for yours instead?”

Matt again, with the huffing. “Ain’t no reason to go draggin’ our mamas into it, boys.”

It’s probably a bad sign that when they do finally reach the start of the obstacle course, Matt’s already trying to catch his breath. His lungs send up flames that lick at his throat and there’s a deep down sense of dread as he looks out across the dawn lit landscape. The shadows are soft and hazy, and they make everything look easier than it actually is.

He makes the mistake of thinking that it couldn’t possibly get any worse. Just as soon as the thought crosses his mind, a nearby drill sergeant calls out to the group. “Buddy up. I want to see groups of four.”

He looks to Fitz. He looks to Monty. Their exchange is one that needs no words, built on a single and mutual understanding: three. They only have three. No one has a stopwatch out yet, but Matt knows they’re being timed, because everything in this place is timed. Take too long, and you’re likely to get smoked.

Which is probably why Monty doesn’t hesitate. It’s probably why, without so much as a second thought, he turns to the guy next to him and links elbows. Three becomes four as Monty pulls the guy into their unofficial circle, with a smile that shines through a layer of delight.

The new guy isn’t smiling.

Instead, he pulls his arm from Monty, and it meets the other across his chest. This guy is all straight and strict and stern, exactly as you’d expect from a military man. If Matt didn’t know better, he’d probably label this one among the drill sergeants, and not the privates. “Touch me again,” he says, low. Steady. “And I promise it’ll be the last thing you ever do with your hands.”

Monty doesn’t take this as seriously as he probably should. “Very scary,” he says. “Fitz, you scared?”

“Absolutely trembling.”

The guy doesn’t get a chance to demonstrate just how scary he can be, which is probably for the better because something about him sends the color red flashing through Matt’s brain. For the first time since he’s arrived, Matt finds himself grateful for a drill sergeant’s order as the entire platoon is told to take a knee, and the situation defuses itself.

Last night’s rain soaks into his kneecap, the damp ground soft beneath him. At his front, a drill sergeant begins to give orders. And it’s true that he should probably be listening more intently to the instructions. It’s true that he probably shouldn’t tune out everything that comes after the word _relay_. There is a very good chance that he is going to regret this brief moment of distraction—and that this regret is eventually going to manifest in the form of many, many pushups—but he can’t quite help himself.

There are 32 guys in Matt’s platoon, and by now he’s friends with almost all of them. Almost. And he can’t help but wonder what kind of person doesn’t make friends in a place like this.

In the barely-there light of morning, Matt reads the name _Ezekiel_ stitched above the boy’s pocket. It brings back years of bible study in a musky church basement, but there ain’t nothing biblical about this Ezekiel. He looks about two steps short of Purgatory and nowhere near the New Testament. 

It is only upon further investigation that Matt recognizes Ezekiel. Something about the way he moves sparks something in Matt’s mind. They had been neighbors on that very first day at the barracks, each with a fallen duffle bag at their feet and a pair of drill sergeants down their necks. They had shared pushups and exchanged thank yous, and then Matt hadn’t heard anything more from him.

It almost startles him when Ezekiel starts talking, his voice quiet beneath that of the drill sergeant. “If you’re going to stare,” he says, “then you should at least move to my good side.”

Matt snaps his gaze forward, and now it’s an entirely new heat that rushes to his face. “Sorry,” he says, and his words come from the corner of his mouth, in a desperate attempt to avoid getting caught. “It’s just—that was you, right? That first day?”

“You mean when you purposefully dropped your bag and peeled two drill sergeants off of me?”

Where Matt comes from, there’s two things you don’t take from a man: his cows, and his pride. And Ezekiel doesn’t seem to have any cows handy. “I dunno what you’re—”

“Don’t lie after you’ve already been caught, Morgan,” he warns. Then he’s real quiet, as a suspicious drill sergeant passes them by. The two of them eye the pair of boots as they step, step, step along the ranks, until they are finally out of earshot once more. “Anyhow, I can appreciate it. It’s not often a guy takes a beating like that when he doesn’t have to.”

And Matt can’t help a little pride of his own. “Well, it ain’t too—”

“Don’t ever goddamn do it again, you hear me?”

“Right on.”

They all have orders to stand now, which he knows not because he was listening to instruction, but rather because everyone else has already beaten him to it. Monty’s there, like always, hand on Matt’s shoulder again. “All good, Morgan?”

His heart pounds in his ears, and there’s this feeling. He can’t quite place it. It starts at the back of his neck, then scatters through his shoulders, his sides, and eventually settles in his gut. It’s everywhere, and it starts with one more fleeting glance at Ezekiel.

But he shakes it loose. Joins his team at the start of the course. “All good.”


	4. Chapter 4

“I like him.” 

Monty’s got a mouthful of boiled sweet potatoes, and Matt’s poking at his own pile with a fork, wishing more than anything that they were roasted. A little oil, a little salt–it wouldn’t be that hard to crisp them right up into a nice sweet brown color. Add in some cinnamon and pecans. Serve them beside an onion-topped steak and some kind of creamy, green bean casserole.

He does miss his mama.

“You don’t like him,” says Fitz, oblivious to the true culinary potential of his meal. “He’s just the only guy in the platoon who can outpace you, and you wanna keep an eye on him.”

Monty taps his knife to his nose, twice in a row, and continues to dig into his plate. His words are a muffle over the chatter of the hall. “S’it a crime to keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”

“If it were,” Fitz says, taking a much more reserved bite of his own, “then modern politics would cease to a halt.”

Matt’s a longtime believer in the idea that if he ain’t got something nice to say, then he shouldn’t say anything at all. This phrase seems especially relevant in regard to Ezekiel, even as his buddies swoon and rave about the performance on this morning’s obstacle course. And so he stays quiet and picks at the steamed broccoli, wondering how his mama ever made it taste good.

“All I’m sayin’ is that someone’s gotta help me carry the weight ‘round here, and it ain’t gonna be either of you two turtles. You saw us out there. Between him and me, our team set a _record relay time_ on that course.” Monty looks satisfied with himself, in that way that Monty so frequently does. “I dunno about you, but I’m interested in finding out what else this guy can do.”

There’s another bite of sweet potato before Monty starts waving his fork in the air, that smooth smile on his lips. His neck cranes through the busy chow hall, driven and fierce. It’s easy to disappear in a place like this, and sink into the sea of green shared between other soldiers, but Monty will always stand out in a crowd, even in uniform.

With a few more flicks of the fork and an unfailingly determined stare-down, they’re approached by a very hesitant, very skeptical Ezekiel. Tray in hand, he stands at the end of their table with just enough curiosity to hold his attention. 

He points at the fork. “I guess that’s for me? ”

“Ezekiel.” Monty’s turned on that welcoming sense of charm from which no one is immune. “I’ll call you Z.”

Well, almost no one. “Ezekiel’s fine.”

“How ‘bout a first name?”

His expression doesn’t change, and yet somehow, the second time feels so much more definitive. “Ezekiel’s fine.”

And there it is again. That little sense of something that Matt gets when he looks at this guy. It’s not wholly bad, but it certainly isn’t wholly good, either. It’s just _wrong_. Out of place. A buzzing static in his inner ear or a white hot pin prick at the back of his brain. There’s something interesting about Ezekiel, but Matt doesn’t know what it is and he doesn’t know how to find out more.

The feeling picks at his curiosity and fosters a sense of unease. If his pops were here to sense the judgement on him, then Matt would likely get a bible knocked against the back of his head, all while his father quoted no less than three relevant verses at him. 

But his pops ain’t here, and something still doesn’t feel right about Ezekiel.

“Morgan,” Monty says. “Slide over and give the man a seat—they teach you any manners back home?”

Matt’s got manners up the wazoo and he’s just about to say so, but before he can even start to shuffle, Ezekiel says, “I won’t be here for that long. Say what you’ve got to say Montgomery, so that I can go eat my meal in peace.”

It’s the use of Monty’s full last name that does it. The conversation shifts from a lightweight pleasantry into something thicker, denser, and with significantly more bargaining. “A man of business,” Monty says. “I can appreciate that.”

“Maybe you can appreciate it with a little more speed?”

“Greatness cannot be rushed, Ezekiel,” Monty says, and he pushes his tray forward, ridding himself of distraction. It’s a careful and deliberate sort of strength that fills his next words, and for all of the things that he’s come to know about Monty, Matt realizes that he still has a lot more to learn. “The four of us made a pretty good team out there on the course this morning, don’t you think?”

Ezekiel glances to Fitz first. Then to Matt. He’s got an off-putting intensity about him when he’s looking right at a person, and Matt’s almost relieved when his gaze leaves him to fall back on Monty. “Sure.”

“I say we make it a more permanent arrangement,” Monty says. “See, I’m lookin’ to do great things in the military, and I’m betting that you are too. And these guys”—he points back and forth between Matt and Fitz—”are good at a lot of things, but physicality ain’t their strong suit. Fitz, here, has spent more time in books than in any kind of backyard, and Morgan ain’t got an athletic bone in his body—”

“Now hold on.” The words come out before Matt can fully stop himself, but he almost immediately regrets it, because Ezekiel’s looking at him again. He’s never been one to crave attention, but this is an entirely new level of unwanted. “I played four years of varsity ball.”

Fitz laughs and, thankfully, the tension dissolves. “Do they even have baseball in Nebraska?”

“Course we’ve got baseball in Nebraska.” It comes out with quite a bit more disgust than he intends, but it’s really not his fault. Even the mere implication of a life without his favorite sport leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. “Used to go see the Royals on opening day every year with my pops.”

To Matt’s surprise, it’s Ezekiel who speaks up. “Hold on,” he says. “The Royals? You’re talking about the _Kansas City_ Royals?”

Monty’s smile grows even wider. “It don’t count as a Nebraskan baseball team if it’s in Kansas, Morgan.”

“It’s in Missouri.”

Matt and Ezekiel speak in unison, which strikes some kind of chord at the center of Matt’s torso. Whether it’s a good feeling or a bad feeling, he can’t quite tell.

“So what I’m hearing,” says Fitz, “is that, in fact, y’all don’t have baseball in Nebraska.”

“There's plenty of places that don’t have baseball,” Monty says. “Louisiana’s been trying to get a team for years, but it hasn’t happened yet. Sometimes you’ve just got to pick the closest one.”

“It’s not like I _wanna_ root for the Royals,” Matt agrees. “They’re just the only option. We’ve got a decent triple-A team in Omaha, but it just ain’t the same to root for them, because they can’t win a World Series.”

In the clattering hum of the hall, Matt thinks that he might just hear a huff from Ezekiel. “Neither can the Royals, apparently.”

Well that’s just in poor spirit. 

But, actually, it’s also kind of funny.

“Oh yeah?” Matt’s given up on most everything on his plate at this point, save a chewy chocolate brownie that he’s been saving for last. He takes a bite, and it’s the closest he can come to pure happiness. “So I’m sure your team’s got a bunch of wins under their belt, then?”

“Well my team’s the Yankees,” Ezekiel tells him. “So, yeah. One or two.”

Or twenty-two, to be exact. But who’s counting? (Matt. Matt is counting.)

Ezekiel has this permanent look on his face that seems to say he knows more than anyone else in the room. Somehow, in that moment, Matt doesn’t doubt that he does. He wishes that he could place it—wishes that he had the language for the pile of rocks that sit at the base of his gut. Something about Ezekiel is off, and it’s not just because Matt’s been raised to hate the Yankees almost as much as he hates the Cardinals. This is beyond baseball, and he’s not sure how Monty and Fitz don’t see that.

Because Monty just sucks in a breath through his teeth. “Tough break, Morgan,” he says. Then, to Ezekiel, “I’ll tell ya what. You can school my friend here in Major League Baseball anytime you want, just as long as you keep running the obstacle courses with us. Sound good?”

The question isn’t meant for Matt, but still he feels the need to answer. “No?” he says. “No, that does not sound good?”

Ezekiel takes a moment to deliberate, and the chow hall seems to echo louder than before. Forks clatter against hard plastic. Laughter floats along the noise. Matt’s not sure, but he thinks he might see a smile, just below Ezekiel’s hard surface. “When you need four, I’m your guy,” he says. Then, he looks at Matt. “But I won’t be eating lunch with a Royals fan.”

They don’t shake on it. They don’t negotiate further. The conversation is over, made clear by Ezekiel’s prompt exit. Monty looks on with that smug grin again, then turns back to Fitz and Matt. “I think that went really well, don’t you?”

Matt finishes the last bite of his brownie, then leaves.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written before the events surrounding the murder of George Floyd, but it would be irresponsible to ignore the resonance it may have with the thoughts and feelings of a hurting people. I encourage you, if you can and if you haven’t already, to match my donation of $20 to a bail fund of your choice (local is best!).

It’s a rare heat for this late in the year—the kind that weighs on the chest and makes it hard to breathe. Thick and humid, the air stiff without a breeze. The sun shows no mercy and the clouds provide no cover. When he first enlisted, Matt knew that he would eventually come across any number of hard battles, but no one warned him that his most enduring among them would be that held against Mother Nature.

The weight of his mask certainly doesn’t help the situation. The sides squeeze at his chin, his cheeks, his forehead. The goggles fog with sweat. His teeth grind against his own anxiety and every time he breathes, he sounds more and more like Darth Vader. It’s the kind of thing that gets him thinking about the Empire, which in turn sends him down the path of Stormtroopers, and The Force, and another battle between good and evil in a galaxy far, far away.

His platoon marches downhill in rows of two, towards a flag of red, white, and blue that hangs limp at the peak of its pole. It’s the very same flag that his pops fought for, and his father before him. There ain’t a Morgan boy in the whole family tree that’s failed to serve, and so Matt’s own service is merely following through on a promise that was made long before he was even born. Sometimes it feels like he was destined to be here.

Sweat slides down his back and soaks into his uniform. The day is tinged with a warm golden glare and he wishes, more than anything, that he could jump in an icy November lake. His equipment lays heavy on his shoulders and he can hear himself breathing again. In, then out. In, then out. It’s a strained, hollow sort of sound that reverberates through his jaw, and he wonders what it is that the Stormtroopers fight for.

A halt command echoes through the ranks, pulling Matt firmly back to Earth. In the silence of attention, the flag begins to wave against a barely present breeze. 

At his front stands a small brick shed, painted gray and stained with rust around the doorways. Cautionary signs are screwed into the wall, spelling out warnings of irritants and fire risk. The words MASK REQUIRED can be seen three separate times from where Matt is standing, and likely many times over again from different angles. There’s no mistaking what he is about to do.

In his civilian life, he never once imagined that he might willfully walk into a gas chamber. Any number of history lessons have taught him of the horrors and tragedy that accompany such a place, ingraining in him an uninhibited revulsion. His mind is filled with black and white photos of scratches and skeletons. Of barbed wire and battered shoes. It’s a gruesome association that would make even the strongest men squirm. 

And he knows that he should be proud—proud to serve a country that would intervene during times of such duress. Proud to act as one small piece in a militant machine that the world looks towards in times of trouble. Proud to be a part of a people who ally themselves against oppression. America didn’t start the second World War, but they certainly did end it, and a part of him wants to believe in the legend of the United States.

Yet still, his patriotism feels tainted. Uncertain. He’s never quite been able to lay a finger on the reasoning and, furthermore, he reckons that it doesn’t boil down to any singular reason at all. Matt’s lived through the March on Washington and Dr. King’s dreams. He’s had a father at war, as news broadcasts displayed the dead and wounded on his own television. He’s seen the National Guard turn against Kent State students, and veterans turn toward anti-war sentiment, and the jailing of a once beloved Muhammad Ali. This country has given him doubts just as frequently as it has affirmed him, and it leads him to believe that if he had been given more of a choice in the matter, then the Army may not have even appeared on his radar.

Although, none of this seems especially relevant as a drill sergeant opens the door in front of him.

Rumor states that there are two phases to Army teargas training: the easy, and then the hard. Matt’s learned over the past few weeks that Army Easy is very different from Civilian Easy, so he anticipates the worst as they order his half of the platoon inside.

This facility isn’t like the pictures he’s seen. Not even close. It’s clean and technical, lit by overhead fluorescence and designed for a quick in-and-out. There’s a door at his back, and another at his front. There’s plenty of room for him if he needs it. He’s been adequately equipped and fitted for a mask that lets him breathe poison and, crucially, Matt knows that he can leave at any time.

The drill sergeant’s words are muffled through the respirator. He can’t quite hear them, and so he relies on the physical cues. Hand waving and repetitive gestures. The movement of those around him. He does his best to fall in line and act as one. The boys at his side are unusually quiet. Unusually jagged. He can practically see the adrenaline course through their veins as each of them tries to catch their breath. The faint scent of pepper threatens them with what’s to come and Matt just about panics.

And as foolish as it may seem, he finds himself wondering what Luke Skywalker might do in this situation. He closes his eyes. Draws inward. It’s with even breaths and a keen focus that Matt is able to finally calm himself. It’s not The Force, but it’s close enough. 

In, then out. In, then out. He’s never had to focus on breathing before. He’s never had to do it on purpose. His skin starts to scratch and his sweat starts to sting. This is another one of those moments during which time passes both too slowly and too quickly.

A drill sergeant approaches him, and just like that, he knows that the hard part of the training is about to begin. “Break your seal, Private.”

Matt’s gotten pretty good at following direct orders over the course of the past few weeks. Even still, he hesitates.

The drill sergeant nods. “You’ve got this, let’s go.”

It’s a rare show of encouragement, and so Matt puts it to good use. Despite every instinct acting against him, he reaches up to the mask and pulls it away from his mouth. The gas goes straight for his eyes. Then his nose, his mouth, and his throat in that order. Never before has he felt such a desperate need to stop. Stop everything. Stop feeling. Stop existing. He blinks away the burn, feels the stretch in his lungs.

And the drill sergeant presses the mask back to his face. Matt recalls his training, drudging it up from beneath the layer of frantic panic, and he resets his respiration. In, then out. In, then out. It’s not long before he’s back to a clean breath.

“See?” says the drill sergeant. “That mask will save your life, and don’t you forget it.”

Matt’s not likely to forget any of this, but the only thing he dares say in reply is, “Yes Drill Sergeant.”

He moves on to the next victim of his rounds, leaving Matt to follow miscellaneous orders. He move his head left to right, elevates his heart rate, recites the soldier’s creed. Around him, guys cough their way through exposed gas. Some regain themselves quickly. Others take much longer. Although it can’t take up that much time, it feels like an eternity before a drill sergeant calls out again. “Grab hold of the person next to you,” he orders. “You’ll follow them out the door. Time to take a nice, long whiff, Privates.”

The pain is instant. It doesn’t even wait for Matt to fully remove his mask. His nose runs like a river as he heaves and hacks. Drill sergeants stand at the front of the room, heading warnings of control and mindfulness. Matt has some choice language for where they can kindly shove their mindfulness, but he’s too busy trying to breathe. 

Until finally, he hears the metal click of the doors and daylight floods into the room. There’s yelling. There’s groaning. There’s coughing. The person to his side starts to pull, dragging him out into the sun.

Matt’s never been so happy to step into the hot, humid, heavy air.

He receives orders to flap his arms, blink his eyes. Flap his arms, blink his eyes. Mucus builds up in his throat, and all he can do is spit the taste of torture from his mouth. They’ve trained him not to rub his eyes. Not to wipe his nose. He knows in his mind that these things will only make the pain worse, and yet it’s such a strain to fight the instinct. 

As his coughing subsides and he’s able to blink back into sightedness, the first thing he sees is the flag. Still hanging. Still dancing in what little wind they do have. And he thinks of all the people who have bled for it. All of the people who have died under it. All of the people who praise it, or detest it, or don’t even spend a minute of their days to think about it. He thinks of all the pain and hurt in the world that has existed in the name of one little patchwork piece of fabric.

It doesn’t seem like enough time passes before the doors open again, and the second half of his platoon comes filing out. Fitz and Monty are both in this batch, and he looks on as they cough and spit, hoping that he didn’t look nearly that foolish during his own exit.

And, actually, Fitz is really coughing—wildly, _gutturally_ coughing—and it stands out against the rest of the crowd. It’s a nasty, gnarly sound that urges Matt towards his friend, his brother, not sure of what he intends to do, but knowing that he has to do it. “Fitz?” he starts. “Hey, Fitz. You alright?”

Fitz is currently hunched over on his own knees, and there’s already a puddle of long-past lunch at his feet. No one else has puked, and it sends a spike of anxiety through Matt’s chest. He starts to imagine all of the worst possible scenarios—allergic reaction, oversaturated exposure, asphyxiation. It’s amazing how long of a list Matt’s capable of making when it comes to absolute terror.

But beside him, Monty’s coughing has started to dissolve into laughter. And something about Monty’s laughter always eases a situation.

“It ain’t funny, jackass,” Fitz spits.

Monty just keeps laughing. “S’a little funny.”

Matt’s missing out on the joke. “Fitz, are you—?”

“I’m _fine_.”

Monty’s laughter is renewed, and he takes the liberty to explain. “Someone went and knocked Fitz’s mask loose on the way in. Coughed up a storm the whole time. Real embarrassing, you shoulda seen it.”

Fitz continues to choke on his own air. Matt keeps a watchful eye on him, but Monty’s laughter is contagious and it is, truthfully, just a little bit funny in the most unfortunate way possible. “Someone just hit your mask?” he says. “Who?”

“Couldn’t see,” says Monty. “Someone probably just got nervous and forgot to pay attention.”

“But you better believe when I find out who, they’re getting a serious asskicking,” says Fitz.

“You ain’t never kicked anyone’s ass, and you ain’t gonna start now.”

“Wanna bet?”

“Just keep coughin’, bud,” Monty says. “You can talk all the trash you want when you stop crying.”

“It’s the _teargas_.”

“Sure it is, Fitzy.”

The two of them go back and forth, in a way that only Fitz and Monty can. Monty’s smile shines through it all, and even Fitz settles on light laughter after a little while. There’s a sense of relief between the three of them. More than that, accomplishment. If they can conquer teargas training, then they can conquer anything Basic Training has for them. Something about that moment ties them together at their very souls as Matt straightens out Fitz’s jacket. As Monty wipes the tears from Fitz’s chin.

The flag above them whips, now, as the wind picks up and displays the colors in full force. There are plenty of bad reasons to fight for one’s country, and Matt could list them ad nauseam. But as Monty wraps his arm around Fitz’s shoulders and the three of them take off towards the rest of their training, Matt thinks that there are a few good things to fight for, too.


	6. Chapter 6

They land with a _smack_ against cracked mats, and it’s the kind of blow that knocks the wind out of Matt, even if he was the one to deliver it. Muscles groan as he pins his opponent to the ground, skin stretched across every last squirm. There’s a cry in his ear, short, but strong. It echoes throughout the gymnasium, but Matt holds steady. If there is any one thing that Matt knows how to do, it is hold steady.

Tap, tap.

It’s a surrender in its simplest form, and so he releases his hold. He stands. He helps Fitz to his feet. “I’ll tell you something, Morgan,” he says, cricking out his neck. “You ain’t quick, but you sure are strong.”

Matt wrestles a kink out of his own shoulder, left behind from one of his earlier matches. Or maybe it’s from this morning’s pullups. Or maybe this is just how his shoulder is, now—perpetually and eternally sore, just like the rest of him. “I spent three summers stocking Mr. Wilson’s hardware shop back home,” he says. “You’d be surprised how heavy those 2-by-4s get after a while.”

Fitz wears the look of a man who has never once had to move bags of concrete in a mid-August heat. “What a sad little life you’ve lived,” he says. “No baseball, no summers—”

“We’ve _got_ baseball.”

“I should bring you back to mine, show you how the other half lives. We’re supposed to be outta here by the holidays, you know. Senator Fitzgerald’s Christmas party is always a real production.”

“Ain’t interested in the other half,” Matt says, and his mind wanders towards holly and mistletoe. Towards evergreen and Christmas dinner. As early as November, the Morgan family ranch takes on a certain sort of scent and the mere memory of it fosters a warmth in Matt’s chest. “And besides, my mama’s got the better ham.”

“Well, you’re probably right about that,” Fitz admits. “In that case, maybe I ought to head your way.”

“Door’s always open, Fitzy,” he says. “Just as long as you're prepared to have someone else’s mama tell you that you’re way too skinny.”

The chirp of a nearby whistle snaps the pair of them into the present, piercing even at a distance. It ends their conversation before it has a chance to start and it spurs an instinctual straightening out between the two of them—Matt’s shoulders roll back, Fitz’s chin ticks up, and both of them await their next instruction.

In the weeks that have passed since his arrival at Fort Jackson, Matt has learned that if he can look past all of their similarities, then each drill sergeant is just a little different from the last. Below all of the crisp movement, the sharp orders, and the Army uniformity, he’s able to spot a sliver of humanity. Something that lies beneath all of the training. It’s barely noticeable, but give Matt enough time with anyone and he can pinpoint exactly what makes them stand out.

And when he knows how they stand out, it’s that much easier for him to blend in. 

Adaptability is his default and it comes to him like breathing. Some drill sergeants are nitpickers, ready to smoke privates for any wrinkle, any twitch, any unkempt corner. Others don’t prioritize cleanliness, so long as he has the perfect pushup. Some want neat ranks, some want punctuality, and some of them just want everyone to shut up and listen. Once he knows what a person is looking for, he can then become completely invisible to them. If he meets their expectations exactly—no better, no worse—then they don’t even notice he’s there.

So far, the only thing that Matt has been able to deduce about Drill Sergeant Cooper is that he favors his whistle. It’s always hanging around his neck on a silver-beaded chain, jingling against dog tags, waiting for the opportune moment. It functions as a morning alarm, as a starting signal, as a call to attention. It functions as a better-get-moving, and an ought-to-straighten-up, and a drop-and-give-me-twenty. No matter the purpose, it is never anyone’s favorite sound, and it usually signals bad news for whoever’s on the other end. 

The rest of his drill sergeants were relatively simple solves, but aside from that whistle, Cooper reads like a blank page at the very center of a book. A hole in the middle of a cornfield. “Morgan.”

Cooper steps onto the edge of the mat and Matt can’t help but feel completely and totally visible. Noticeable. Seen. “Yes, Drill Sergeant.”

He’s the kind of mean looking man that emanates intimidation, always with a wad of tobacco in his lower left lip. “Looks like we’ve found where your strengths lie,” he says, in a deep twang that belongs more to Mississippi than it does to South Carolina. “Fitzgerald doesn’t seem like your best match.”

Matt doesn’t admit that, in fact, he already knows Fitz isn’t well matched against him. It is for exactly that reason that Matt partners with him so frequently. “No, Drill Sergeant.”

Cooper flashes a rare smile, right at the corner of his mouth, and Matt immediately knows that he’s made the terrible and irreversible mistake of exceeding someone’s expectations. “What d’you say we pair you up with someone a little more suited to take you on?”

There are a handful of guys who are undeniable naturals in hand-to-hand combat training and Matt has done everything in his power to avoid them. Monty, of course, sits near the top of that list, because everything comes easy to Monty. He fights like he’s dancing, unafraid and uninhibited, with the kind of full-body awareness that’s visible in his every move. 

Then there’s Walt, who went to the New York state championships for his high school wrestling team two years in a row. Or even Johnson, who played defensive tackle on his varsity team back in Arkansas. 

Matt sticks with Fitz. Because when he’s fighting Fitz, he’s got control. When he’s fighting Fitz, he gets to decide who wins and who loses. He takes a few. He throws a few. No one is the wiser, and Matt can carry on without the burden of being known. But if the look on Drill Sergeant Cooper’s face is any indication, then Matt has miscalculated. He’s won just a few too many rounds against a partner that he’s grown entirely too comfortable with.

This gym is filled with people he doesn’t want to fight, especially not under the watchful eye of a drill sergeant that he doesn’t yet know how to please. Dread weaves its way through his bones, and it is only made worse when Cooper calls out the name, “Ezekiel.”

Well. Ain’t that just a rumblin’ storm on a sunny afternoon?

Of the people currently in his presence, Matt would place Ezekiel at the very bottom of his list of preferred combatants, and this includes the attending drill sergeants. His intensity follows him onto the mats and bleeds into his fighting style. He’s quick, he’s unpredictable, and sometimes he just seems outright angry—in the way that is deeply, tirelessly permanent. Most of the people in this training center are fighting for their country. Not Ezekiel. Ezekiel is fighting for his life.

Ezekiel stands out. Matt doesn’t know how, and he doesn’t know why. But his mama taught him not to meddle in business that ain’t his own, so he does his best to turn a blind eye. To avoid the boy who doesn’t make much sense.

Admittedly, it is pretty hard to avoid his own sparring partner.

Ezekiel approaches the drill sergeant, and the two of them exchange words in voices that feel far too low compared to all of the yelling that fills their days. He nods, following an order of some sort, before he steps forward on the mat, and he meets Matt in the middle. 

The heat of the room sits fresh on Ezekiel’s rosy cheeks. His breaths are still catching up after another fight he’s already won. “What’s the matter, Morgan?” His expression is flat. His tone is steady. "You look like you’ve never been in a fight before.”

Their platoon trains in the combat gym six hours a week, and Ezekiel knows it. And while Matt’s fights back home were usually over as quickly as they began, the number of them is, notably, not zero. “Been in plenty of fights,” he says. “Just haven’t usually had a trained soldier looking over my shoulder during them.”

He throws a nod at their shared drill sergeant, and Ezekiel turns to steal a glance. As he looks back, he begins to square up, setting his feet, adjusting his posture, establishing the beginnings of a defense. “Don’t worry about Cooper,” he says.

Matt’s instincts kick in, and he begins to mirror Ezekiel without even realizing it. His fists fall to the front of his face and there’s a looseness to his shoulders. “No?” he says. “And why shouldn’t I?”

“Because you _should_ be worried about me,” says Ezekiel. “You’ve got to make it through this match before Cooper can yell at you about it.”

It’s a threat, although Matt doesn’t have time to comprehend it before Cooper blows his whistle again—a short chirp that leaves no room for interpretation. As soon as it sounds, Ezekiel hooks his leg around Matt’s own, and the two of them are down on the mat without so much as a breath.

Ezekiel’s knee presses into Matt’s sternum, harder, harder, harder. Each passing second comes without air and without sympathy, ticking through his training as he tries to think of something—anything—that might help him maneuver his way out of the hold. Except that his wrists are pinned, and his legs are out of range, and the world is beginning to fill with little black spots.

Tap, tap.

The weight lifts from Matt’s chest and he catches his breath in the form of a loud and unflattering gasp. He holds back the coughing, at least, and saves himself a bit of embarrassment. In, then out. In, then out. 

As Ezekiel stands, he doesn’t help Matt up, and that’s just unsportsmanlike. “What the hell was that?” Matt says, climbing back to his feet. “We’re supposed to be sparring, not knocking each other unconscious.”

“It’s not my fault you left yourself wide open, Morgan.”

Matt glances over at Drill Sergeant Cooper who stands unmoving at the edge of the mat, watching. Either he can’t hear what they’re saying, or he doesn’t care to correct them.

“I told you to stop worrying about Cooper,” Ezekiel says, and this time he doesn’t go for the leg, but rather the arm. It’s a twist like Matt’s never felt before, until his hand is stretched to his shoulder and he can’t help but cry out.

This move is simple enough to get out of, but Ezekiel’s already one step ahead of him. As soon as Matt turns his arm the right way, Ezekiel’s waiting for him with a hit to the gut.

He’s hunched over with a rock in his stomach, and Ezekiel’s words land as a whisper just beside his ear. “Your body’s never going to be in the fight if you don’t get your head there first.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“I’m not trying to help you,” Ezekiel says. “I’m trying to make it a fair fight.”

It’s one, two, three steps back as Ezekiel shoves him, and his balance is thrown. “Why do you care about a fair fight?”

“Because I’ll get bored, otherwise.”

And one, two, three steps forward as Matt regains his footing. The two of them circle each other, but even as they do, Matt can see that Ezekiel’s getting antsy. The inaction seems to strike through to his core. 

So it’s no surprise when he begins to charge. When the space between them closes for the sake of settling Ezekiel’s inexplicable restlessness. Matt’s almost ready for him this time.

Almost.

It’s a dirty trick, the way he goes for the legs. Matt gets so wrapped up in the face and the hands that he loses track of his footwork, and Ezekiel trips him up without much effort. He lands hard against the mat, loud enough that he earns some pitying groans from nearby trainees. The skin along his back prickles and stings, while the rest of him throbs and bruises. 

Ezekiel doesn’t waste a moment in pinning him to the mat, twisting their limbs together until Matt’s well beyond the point of recovery. As he stares up at the rafters, he ponders his pride, and wonders if it's worth giving up in order to regain feeling in his left shoulder again.

Tap, tap.

Again, Ezekiel doesn’t help him up. Matt’s words come out in huffs as his heart races in his own throat. “Ain’t much of a gentleman, are you, Zeke?”

There’s a warning glance as he swipes the sweat from his lip. “Careful there, Morgan,” he says. “Already kicked your ass twice, and I’m not afraid to do it again.”

“Just wondering what kind of guy doesn’t help his partner back up off the mat.”

“Is this your attempt at trash talk? Are you trash talking me?”

“You probably ain’t the door-holding type either.”

“It’s just that I usually know when I’m being trash talked.”

“That one’s a real zinger back in Hay Springs. You don’t know it, but you’re devastated.”

“Is that right?”

“As rain.”

“Can we get back to the fight now?”

“Well I don’t expect us to start dancing.”

But it is sort of that way—like dancing. It’s nothing that belongs in a ballroom, but there’s a certain rhythm to it. Matt’s starting to get a feel for Ezekiel’s patterns and he’s able to fall into step with them. Adaptability. It’s all about adaptability. 

So when Ezekiel jabs, Matt can dodge. When he swings at the leg, Matt can find his stance. It’s a longer round than the other two, and Matt starts to see that restlessness build up in his partner again. 

And it’s the same strategy he took on last time, charging Matt, closing the distance. Except that this time Matt is ready for him. Excitedly and entirely so. As soon as he’s within reach, Matt latches his hands around Ezekiel’s waist and hones in on the momentum.

Ezekiel flies over his shoulder like a bag of mulch at the start of spring, and Matt’s not quite sure what happens after that. He knows that there’s a _thud_ , and that it echoes throughout the room. He knows that it’s followed by Drill Sergeant Cooper’s whistle, this time long and loud. And he knows that, for whatever reason, his eyes are squeezed shut.

When he peels them open again, he’s surprised to find that he’s still standing. Not only that, but Ezekiel is splayed flat on the ground behind him, a groan on his lips. Overhead lights cut at the dust that fills the room’s unusual stillness and their entire platoon crowds around the pair of them, awestruck by the sight of their very own David and Goliath tale. 

It’s not often that a hush falls over the platoon. The disbelief takes its physical form in silence.

Matt can hardly believe it himself. He can’t tell if there’s pride, or guilt, or justice coursing through him. Maybe a mixture of all three. Nevertheless, he steps over to Ezekiel. Extends his hand. “See?” he says. “Ain’t that hard to be a gentleman.”

His partner eyes the offer, his jaw set, with heat in his gaze. There’s five, six, seven seconds before Ezekiel finally reaches out and grabs Matt’s hand.

And then he yanks him down, rolls him over, and pretty soon Matt’s in another bind that he can’t get out of. 

Ezekiel’s sitting on top of him now, without a sense of glee or anger or anything in between. He’s empty, looking down on Matt as he says, “Gentlemen never win.” He tightens the bind, and Matt’s shoulder screams. “Your kindness is going to get you killed.”

Tap, tap.

And that’s when Ezekiel stands back up and shoulders his way through the crowd, leaving Matt behind for a third and final time.


	7. Chapter 7

His eyes are closed before his head even hits the pillow, but that doesn’t mean he ain’t seeing things.

In the heavy darkness of the barracks, his sense of self fades, and the days revisit him as a haze among the nothingness. They come to him in snippets of raw tangibility—the blaze of the sun, the sweat on his brow, the empty breath. It all plays out in the static behind his eyelids, mercilessly nagging at his sleepy attention, as his body rocks back and forth along a seemingly endless downward spiral.

Sometimes he has to catch himself. It’s a jolt into the present as he aligns his thoughts with reality once more. There are always a few wondering breaths as he debates how long he’s been sleeping. Or if he’s been sleeping at all. But he never finds an answer to the question before he succumbs to another round of long, lingering blinks, and the world sinks back into silence. 

It starts at his feet, and works its way up. It starts with the sore prick of new blisters and a stiffness in his arch. An absent rhythm pulses through his heel, landing like a ghost as he recalls mile six, seven, eight of an imaginary run that doesn’t seem to end. It’s the kind of throb that bleeds into swollen ankles and tired calves. The thickness weighs down his entire body. The image of Fort Jackson’s graveled running trail extends into his dreams.

His shins feel bruised and hollow. His knees, tight and strained. He feels the impact of ground long ago left with each passing second, step after invisible step. The memory crawls up his quads and leaves a flaming tension along each thigh. His mind pieces together the sight of his hilly training grounds, and he can’t tell if he’s walking up, or falling down.

He thought he might get used to this, eventually. He thought that, one day, the exhaustion might dissolve and that the nights might come more easily. But a number of weeks have brought little relief, and his consciousness still dances in his own private dizziness, grounded only by a single point in his hips that settles atop his mattress.

He falls victim to an imprisoned restlessness. A weary need to move without moving. His fingers might fidget, if he could lift any one of them. His wrists might wring if his hands weren’t quite so weighted. He drowns in a layer of droopiness, hoping to escape into sleep.

There’s a flash of barbed wire and his arms twitch without his knowledge, crawling under an obstacle that isn’t really there. Or maybe it is. The training seeps into his elbows, his shoulders, his chest. His back moans and cracks, even in stillness, every last vertebrae unfurling with the presence of gravity. The day decompresses within his own delirium, as he prepares for another dawn.

And he’s spinning. Spinning, spinning, spinning. Falling. He’s falling in every direction at once.

It’s another one of those jolts, and he’s met with just a few short moments of awareness. He stares up at the bottom of Monty’s mattress, crisscrossed springs holding true overhead. Moonlight cuts at the bricks of the barracks. Sniffles and snores sound out in the shadows and Matt once again begins to feel the density of the darkness. He blinks once. Twice. Maybe even a third time, although he quickly loses count. 

He’s swallowed by the almost-sleep, lost in the whirling, weightless space of Neverland. The vertigo strikes him in the form of pushups, this time, down and up, down and up, until he’s floating on fairy dust. Down and up, down and up, which translates into swinging by some virtue of his tired mind. It is a very slim moment during which the Army does not intrude on his dreams, but rather he is brought back to the ranch. To the tire swing that hangs beside the pond.

And he’s twirling, twirling, twirling on that swing, his laughter loud and long. Rubber edges pinch at his palms. Chocolate lingers on his lips, and he hears the echo of his Pop’s voice from somewhere in the distance, asking if any cake made it in his mouth, or if it all landed on his shirt first. 

He jolts one more time, and realization hits. His words are involuntary, and he can’t quite tell if they’re in his head or not. “It’s my birthday.”

No one hears him, of course. Each member of his platoon is fighting their own losing battle with sleep. Above him, Monty turns over, sending creaks throughout the metal frame before he’s snoring again. Fitz occupies the top bunk just beside them, arm hanging from the side until his fingertips catch a moonbeam. The room is quiet. The Army is at rest.

Except. “What are you muttering about over there, Morgan?”

Matt usually forgets about Ezekiel. His assigned bunk is just below Fitz, but he rarely uses it. Even in sleep, he’s a man who thrives on the in-and-out. On the no-nonsense-necessary. He’s not in bed until well after the lights are already out, and Matt never spots him in the morning. He goes unseen. Unnoticed.

But his words cut through the drowsiness and bring Matt to the forefront of his own awareness. “Sorry,” Matt says. “Nothing—sorry. I just remembered it’s my birthday.”

His eyes land at the underside of Monty’s bed, a slow and steady refocusing as the sounds around him crackle to life. Someone kicks their blankets loose. Another flips their pillow. Someone coughs, once, then returns back to an even breath. It’s the kind of underlying ambient noise that makes it easy to fall asleep.

Ezekiel’s voice is anything but underlying. “Eighteen?”

Matt turns to look at him. “Nineteen.”

“Happy birthday.”

“Thanks.”

And while Matt feels himself sinking into the scratchy sheets, fatigue dripping from his every limb, Ezekiel looks as light as a feather. He’s lounging along his mattress—hands behind his head, one leg crossed over the other—and staring up at the sky. Pale white light cuts at his face, leaving behind stark shadows along the jaw, the nose, the eyes, and Ezekiel looks nowhere close to sleep. In fact, Ezekiel looks like he doesn’t plan on sleeping one bit.

Matt gets to thinking about how this is the sort of place where people make friends. Even on accident. “You doing okay, Zeke?”

This earns him a cutting glance, although it’s not a full turn of the head. Just a scorching side-eye. “I thought I told you not to call me that—”

“C’mon, ease up,” Matt says. “It _is_ my birthday.”

This does nothing to quell the heat of the glare, but Zeke does seem to grant a temporary leniency, even if only this once. He turns back towards the ceiling, a warning look in his eye. “What kind of question is that, anyway? _Am I doing okay?_ ”

Matt doesn’t turn away. “Well, are you?”

Zeke shakes his head, but it’s not an answer. In fact, it’s a direct avoidance. “Don’t you worry about me, Morgan,” he says. “I’m not worth the thought.”

Some part of Matt is about to protest. It boils up inside of him, nearly bubbling over the edge and all he needs is the courage to say it. To be seen.

But before he can get there, he hears Fitz, his words all skewed by sleep and muffled by the mattress. “If y’all don’t shut up soon,” he says, “I’m gonna take your pillows and suffocate you with them.”

With that, Zeke turns over onto his shoulder, his back now facing Matt. The time for courage is gone, and he takes that as his cue to fall back into a swirling, spiraling sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

“It _is_ a live grenade,” says Fitz. “So, y’know. Don’t drop it.”

“And if you do drop it,” Monty calls, “then run like hell.”

Matt’s got the pin looped around his finger as he eyes the shell. The label _AN-M8_ is written out in bold white letters. The canister is smooth against his fingertips, save the toxicity symbol that is etched into its side. “Any other groovy tips, gentlemen?”

“Don’t blow your hand off.”

“And don’t die.”

Matt does everything he can to resist the roll of his eyes. And then he rolls his eyes anyway, because they can’t see him from where they’re standing. “What would I do without you two?”

“Probably blow your hand off.”

“Or die.”

It’s exactly the answer he expects, so Matt doesn’t bother with a response, lest he contribute the next line of their banterous back-and-forth that never seems to end. He has more pressing matters at the moment, namely the 24 ounces of firepower currently held in his dominant hand. This time, he has to tune out his buddies as he studies the device with intent.

And then he pulls the pin. 

It’s the kind of action that has an additional weight baked right into it. The grenade is instantly heavier. Even from ten feet behind him, Fitz and Monty drop their smiles and their jokes as though they intend to lend a hand, but all three of them know that this is Matt’s burden to bear alone.

His training comes to him so quickly that it skips straight to his hands and doesn’t make any stops along the way. He doesn’t deliberate. Doesn’t reflect. He merely calls out a warning to his fellow platoon members and in one fluid motion, he aims, throws, and takes cover. The canister arch, arch, arches through gray skies before it lands with a distant and palpable pop. It’s always a much smaller sound than he anticipates, downright puny compared to some of the other firing weapons on the field, but when Matt finally peeks back over his barricade, he sees the white smoke rising in puffs. It reeks of the gas chamber and leaves a scratch in his throat.

In the midst of the all-clear, he feels Fitz’s hand land on his shoulder. “Damn, Morgan,” he says, and Monty’s just beside him. Monty usually is. “Next you’re gonna tell me you were a pitcher during all those years of _Nebraskan baseball_.”

He talks about Matt’s baseball in the same way most people talk about Sasquatch or the Alkali Lake Monster, and while that might usually be justification for a good ball busting, Matt just laughs this one off. Fitz is mostly harmless—just one of the many know-it-all, shit-giving types that the Army seems to attract. “Catcher, actually.”

Fitz laughs. It’s a loud, barking sort of thing. “You do know that’s the least baseball-y baseball player there is, right?” he teases. “Doesn’t do much to convince me of your legitimacy.”

But Matt just smiles, because he’s heard this one before. “Lotta people forget that the catcher’s gotta throw just as far as the pitcher does,” he says. “And on top of that, we’re smarter.”

“Smarter?” Monty prompts.

“A catcher has to know every strategy, for every base, at every moment of the game,” Matt says. “We’re the ones really calling all the shots. Pitchers are just attention-seeking tools who barely know what’s going on around them.”

Monty perks up at this, unable to ignore a good setup when he sees one. He grins, with a wink at Matt. “Ay Fitzy,” he says, his voice slick. “Y’sure you weren’t a pitcher back in Texas? Sounds like your type.”

And for all the shit he dishes out, Fitz sure can’t take it. “Aw, shove it, Monty,” he says. “I’ll have y’all know I’m smart. Smart to the max, even. Got a 35 on my ACT and a—”

“A 92 on the ASVAB,” Matt and Monty chime in unison. Then, Monty alone. “We know, you doof. You won't shut up about it.”

“I could have gotten into a great school,” Fitz says, for maybe the thousandth time since Matt first met him.

“And yet,” Matt says. “You’re still here in the trenches with us.”

“By choice,” says Fitz.

“And America thanks you,” says Monty. “Or they would. Y’know. If they gave one single shit.”

“And who made you the foremost authority on the American citizenry—?”

Their fun is brought to a merciless halt by the unmistakable chirp of Drill Sergeant Cooper’s whistle. It rings shrill above the mountainous training field and it elicits a sharp pang of dread in Matt’s shoulders. He turns toward the sound with every bit of caution he can muster, and he realizes that awaiting orders from Cooper feels a lot like holding a live grenade. 

And when Cooper says, “Morgan,” across the field, it sounds a lot like a detonated bomb.

Matt looks to Fitz. He looks to Monty. Both of them watch Matt as though he’s dead where he stands, so he doesn’t waste another moment. He hastens toward another firing pit, maybe 150 meters to the west, identical to his own in shape, size, and number of battered gray bricks.

Matt’s hands find comfort by hanging at the collar of his vest. He doesn’t know much about Drill Sergeant Cooper, except that he ain’t a fan of a fidgeting soldier, and so Matt does all he can to find stillness. “Yes, sir?”

Cooper eyes him. The rim of his hat casts a shadow over shining sunglasses. A wad of tobacco rolls around his lower lip, until he finally spits to the side. “That’s quite a throw you’ve got there, son,” he says. “Football?”

“Baseball, sir.”

“Ah, that’ll do.” It’s downright unsettling, how little he moves. There’s not a shift in his stance, not a breath in his chest. Cooper is stoicism right down to the nerve. “Tell me, why’s it look like you boys are having so much fun over there?”

The more they speak, the more Matt is reminded of an old piece of wisdom from the ranch: if he walks away from a steer, it will surely follow. If he runs away from a steer, it will surely charge. There’s no small amount of slow, steady caution in his reply. “Just giving Private Fitzgerald a hard time, sir.”

It’s easier to read cattle than it is to read Cooper. The drill sergeant doesn’t look impressed. But he doesn’t look unimpressed either. His mustache covers any tick of the lips. His uniform strips away any inconsistencies. No man is without his individual tells, but Drill Sergeant Cooper knows exactly how to hide his.

He spits again, then looks at Matt over the rims of his glasses. “Well,” he says, a sort of lilt in his voice. “I reckon if anyone needs a bit of a hard time, it might be Private Fitzgerald, hmm?”

There’s a smile lingering somewhere beneath the surface. It _sounds_ like a joke. Cooper is _looking_ at him like it’s a joke. But it can’t be a joke, because drill sergeants don’t make jokes.

Cooper doesn’t waste any of the time that Matt spends in a stunned silence. “Relax, son,” he says. “I didn’t call you over here to yell and holler. Just the opposite. A little birdie tells me you’re one hell of a marksman.”

Matt’s still hung up on the possibility of a joke made between them, before he finally straightens back out. Gets his head on right. He clears his throat of any uncertainty before he says, “My mama always told me not to brag, sir.”

“From what I hear, you’ve got plenty worth braggin’ about.”

“Ain’t much, sir,” he says. “Where I come from, it helps if you can shoot down a coyote or two, that’s all.”

“Well then let’s see it.”

“Sorry, sir?”

Cooper slides his glasses back up over his eyes and returns to his true, uncomedic form. Behind him, a single rifle sits leaning against the barricade walls, and he cocks his head toward it. “I’d like to see your shootin’,” he says. “And that ain’t a request.”

This is more familiar territory. It’s a direct order. Matt can _handle_ orders. Matt’s spent the last seven weeks eating orders for breakfast, and then puking them back up after a ten-mile run. It brings forward a certain level of simplicity in a moment that is anything but, and he’s happy for the task.

Even if that task is firing a deadly assault weapon.

It ain’t Matt’s first time ever holding a gun—it ain’t even his first time _today_. But it never feels any different from the time before. Even after all of his training, all of his target practice, and all of those hunting trips with his pops, the rifle always feels like hot lead in his hands. From the moment he picks it up, he feels a need to throw it down. 

It’s a feeling that he’s long grown accustomed to, and one that he suspects everyone must grapple with at some point. He hardly notices it creeping up his fingers, his wrists, his forearms. He simply takes his position, setting the rifle along the edge of brick. It’s another one of those instances in which his training overrides any sort of thought, and when his finger hovers over the trigger, all he has to do is breathe.

Matt shoots three rounds with ease, each of them landing within range. It’s a quick and perfect sort of clean, the direct result of a lesson that Matt learned long before the Army: the sooner he shoots the deer, the sooner he gets to go home. The sooner he gets to put the gun down.

He clicks the safety on with ease, more so out of habit than out of any kind of reservation about the moment. When he turns, Drill Sergeant Cooper hasn't changed at all. He gives no sign of the positive or the negative. Neutrality, bordering on boredom. “Good.” There’s no praise in the word. It lands more like a checkmark on a to-do list. “Send Fitzgerald over.”

And Matt ain’t in the business of defying orders. “Monty, too?”

“Did I stutter, son?”

“No, sir.”

“Then I won’t repeat myself,” he says. He spits one final time before Matt can leave. “You wrote to your mama, lately?”

“Every Sunday,” Matt says.

“Be sure she gets an invitation to the graduation ceremony,” he says. “I’m bettin’ she’s missing you something fierce.”

“Yessir,” he says. “She ain’t stopped writing to me about Christmastime. I think she’ll be excited to have me home again.”

“That is what mamas do best,” Cooper says, although there’s the slightest sense of something. Matt’s not quite clever enough to discern it, but he knows enough to see that they’re not talking about his mama. Not really. But before Matt can say anything further, Cooper says, “Off with you, now.”

And Matt heads right back to where he started.


	9. Chapter 9

“Turn, baby.” No one has called him _baby_ in months, but it somehow feels at home on Mary’s lips. She’s the kind of woman who was built to say it—broad and bold, with enough southern charm to make South Carolina feel like a northern state. Matt imagines her with barbecue and a few rounds of beer, when she’s not otherwise surrounded by pins, threads, and a mountain of scrapped fabric. “Keep goin’.”

She stops him with a gentle hand, eyes locked on an imperfection that Matt couldn’t spot if his life depended on it. She straightens out his jacket with a good one-two tug and studies it for one more lingering moment before she asks, “How’s that feel? Right along the seam?”

It’s been another long while since anyone has asked for his input, in any capacity. “Just right, ma’am.”

“No pinching?”

“No ma’am.”

“Not too tight?”

“Not one bit.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” But even so, trained fingertips trail down the stitching and she doesn’t seem satisfied. After some consideration, she removes one pin. Then two. They stay perched between her teeth until she has a chance to measure something that Matt doesn’t understand. It’s just a little bit enchanting to watch her work, in the same way he likes to watch his pops brush the horses, or watch his mama bake a pie.

She is, in every way that one can be, an expert. Hundreds of Army Greens surround her, each of them shaped and mended by her hand. Despite their uniformity, each of them is meticulously unique, as proven by the strewn scraps, the misplaced spools of thread, and every last abandoned hanger. Cubbies are overflowing with unhemmed pants, and laceless shoes sit idle at his side. It is the only disorderly room in all of Fort Jackson, and Mary knows every bit of it.

She must see dozens of recruits a day. But in Mary’s capable hands, Matt feels truly individual for the first time in weeks.

She’s fiddling with his cuffs now, weighing each side out against the other and trying to match the length. She moves quick, with all the grace that a single human being can possibly possess. There’s certainty in every step. It’s the kind of skill that comes with decades spent in the same room, doing the same tasks, surrounded by a single world. Reality exists only through a small window on the far side of the room, drowning in racks and shelves and coats.

The changing leaves catch his eye. It ain’t nothing like back home. The mountains make up a wall of golds and greens and reds. It will all begin to fall soon enough, and Matt wonders if he’ll finally be able to see through to the other side.

“That ought to do it, Matthew.” He hasn’t heard that name in quite some time, either, but she says it just the same way his mama does. It’s just a few quick brushes across his shoulder before she turns him one more time. “Take a look, tell me what you think.”

Matt is no stranger to the idea of a hard day’s work. He’s been shoveling manure since he could smell it, been patching roofs since he could reach them, and he was husking corn back when the stalks still grew well above his head, even in July. There’s always salting to be done in the winter and gardening in the summer. Fall harvests and spring calves. There ain’t a day in his life that started without a rooster’s call. 

This time, a different type of strength looks back at him in the mirror. Gone is the typical Midwestern grind, replaced by a rigid impulse as sponsored by the United States Armed Forces. Below his neatly tailored Service Uniform, Matt can’t help but see all of the early morning PT, all of the miles run, and every last word that a drill sergeant has ever screamed at him.

A sweat-stained collar translates to a sharp tie. Muddy knees become crisp slacks with a crease down each leg. Long, draining days of dirt and dust on slick skin dissolve, and he is left with the product of Mary’s careful expertise—an honorable shade of olive, bedecked with buttons of gold. He’s earned every last inch of this suit.

He can’t help but hold his chin a little higher. Smile a little wider. “Mary,” he says, turning ever so slightly on his heel. “You are a saint.”

“I’ll leave that to the Virgin Mother, thank you kindly,” she says, although she does linger for just a little too long, admiring a patch of stitching that Matt can’t identify. “But you do look mighty fine in that, if I may be so bold as to toot my own horn.”

“Toot away,” Matt says. “Ain’t never had clothes this nice before.”

“Well now that’s just a shame,” she says. “Handsome young man like yourself.”

“Don’t I know it, Mary.”

“Just wait ‘til you get your beret, baby,” she says. “You young ones always seem to grow right up as soon as you put it on.”

He can practically see it, with all of the finishing touches. A jacket that’s all hemmed up and a freshly shaved beret. Pins and chalk replaced with a fresh seam. It’s a preview into an ending that he wasn’t sure he’d see.

“But for now,” Mary says, ever so gently, “I’m gonna have to take it all back.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“The next time you see it, we’ll have it all stitched up and ready to go. Trust me, you don’t wanna be walkin’ around with all those pins in your coat—they’ve got a real tendency to sneak up in places they shouldn’t.”

“You’re breaking my heart.”

She’s smiling with a sort of softness that feels familiar. “You’re closer than you think,” she says. “I promise you that.”

She slides the jacket from his shoulders with a practiced ease and Matt knows that this ain’t the first time she’s had to pry a pretty uniform out of a recruit’s hands. He’ll lose this battle—no doubt about it—and so he doesn’t try to fight it. He simply watches on in longing as she returns the suit to a bag marked _MORGAN, MATTHEW_ , piece by perfectly placed piece.

As he buttons his standard issues back up to his collar, Matt gets caught looking out of the window again. The sun is going quick, made victim to another one of those quick autumnal evenings. In the breeze, the trees shake, and the leaves begin to flutter towards the ground.

“Am I gonna see you at graduation?” Matt asks her, as he pulls his final button through.

She glances up at him. “Now if I went to every graduation ceremony—”

“But this ain’t _every_ graduation ceremony,” he says. “It’s _my_ graduation ceremony.”

“Tell me,” she says. “Do you go ‘round flirting with all the ladies you come across, or just the ones who are thirty years your senior?”

He laughs. This place is full of laughter, even though it seems like it shouldn’t be. “Oh no, Mary. You’ve got me all wrong,” he says. “My flirting is reserved _strictly_ for ladies I met only just an hour ago.”

She zips up the bag and sets it aside to be hung later. Her tape measure thwips between her fingertips as she pulls it taught and hangs it behind her neck. Her smile is something clumsy and warm. “You are gonna cause some trouble, aren’t you?”

“I thought we were saving sainthood for the folks upstairs.”

That one earns a good chuckle. “I’ll see you when you pick up your uniform,” she says. “Best you be on your way, now. And send the next one in after you—”

“C’mon, Mary,” he says, and sticks his lip out as far as it’ll go. “Ain’t every day a guy graduates from Basic Training. What is a ceremony without his mama, his pops, and his tailor?”

“ _Alright_ ,” she says, with the shoo of her hands. “I’ll go, I’ll go. Now off with you. And don’t be causing too much trouble in the meantime. You don’t wanna come this far only to lose it in the end.”

“Ain’t got nothing to worry about, Miss Mary.” He slides his boots back on, fingers fiddling with the laces. It’s second nature to him, now. Every part of this uniform goes on without thinking. “Nothing to worry about at all.”


	10. Chapter 10

This church is different from the one back home.

Back home it’s all warm woods and sparkling stained glass. It’s plush, burgundy carpet and a massive, golden organ that swallows an entire wall. Come Christmastime, the altar is overtaken by vibrant red poinsettias and come Easter, tulips and lilacs take their place. He walks in past a trickling baptismal fountain, and his mama spends the first twenty minutes chatting across the pews. Someone keeps the candles lit, even while he’s away.

The chapel at Fort Jackson feels more like an office than anything else. The gridded tile hangs low above his head and each chair folds up at the end of services. The air hasn’t flowed down here since the sixties, and the windows are made up of great, dense cubes of glass. Music stands act as podiums and a full sized American flag hangs flat against an otherwise bare wall. It’s clear that this room serves a number of different functions, converted weekly into a space of worship rather than acting as an uninterrupted place of God.

Matt doesn’t mind. Not one bit. When it comes to faith, he ain’t all too concerned with looks. It’s enough just to show up.

And he has. Shown up, that is. Every single week. There are a number of factors that contribute to his perfect attendance—an excuse to get out of Sunday morning cleaning, a really nice priest, the faint yet persistent fear that God Himself will smite Matt if ever he goes a single week without worship—but in the end, it’s just _easy_ to be here.

In the chaotic, uncertain exhaustion that fuels Army Basic Training, religious service is a necessary familiarity. Maybe this church looks a little different, but they read the same gospels. They say the same prayers. He knows when to sit, when to stand, and what to say. It’s a slice of Nebraska, wedged in between the South Carolina skies, and he finds an unexpected comfort in it. What once felt like a chore is now a welcome routine. For the first time in his life, church comes as a desire, rather than an obligation.

He’s thankful for the quiet as he says his final prayers for the week. Peace of mind is such a rarity when he is constantly surrounded by soldiers. For one hour a week, he’s allowed to unwind, melt into his thoughts, and let the Big Guy handle things.

Although, it does seem like it’s been more than an hour. And maybe it is a little _too_ quiet.

He peeks out over his palms, surprised to find that he’s the only man left standing—or kneeling, as the case may be. Around him, the chairs are all crooked and empty, his platoon long gone, and Matt looks up to see the priest at the front of the room. “Sorry, Father,” he says. “Got a little carried away.”

The priest smiles, studying next week’s scripture in his own stretch of welcome silence. “Take all the time you need.”

With that blessing, Matt decides to take just a few more minutes to wrap up his thoughts. He prays for his pops. He prays for his mama. And, in all truth, he prays a little bit for himself, too.

Fort Jackson is made to chew up recruits and spit out soldiers. It’s _hard_ , in a purposeful way that trumps most of life’s accidental difficulties. He loses himself in the day-to-day exhaustion, stifled by the endless parade of soreness, and stiffness, and pain. So he prays, hoping beyond hope that it gets easier from here. He prays that confusion turns to confidence, and that sunrise starts to feel safe again.

God doesn’t answer. He ain’t usually one for immediate replies.

So Matt leaves his prayers to simmer, belatedly standing from his knees. He says his goodbyes to the Father with a promise to return the next week and carries an armful of chairs to their rack as he goes.

The stairway is short and familiar, worn at every edge with corners that are rarely cleaned. The railing is rusted and the carpet is long stained. It’s a narrow, forgotten corridor, lit only by a single window at its top. He skips every other step and his momentum carries him through as the door clatters beneath his palms. The air shifts from musky to crisp thanks to Sunday’s high noon.

Or, well, it would be crisp, if not for the smoke.

There’s plenty of guys who smoke back home, but it’s been weeks since Matt last encountered that thick stench of a burning cigarette. It’s enough to catch him fully off guard, until he spots Zeke leaned up against the chapel wall, lighter in hand and smoke barely blazing. 

He rolls his eyes. “Some timing you have,” he says, words tight. “Right when I light one.”

Questions fill Matt’s mind quicker than he can say them, so instead they all come out as a singular, “What…?”

Zeke looks down at the little red pack in his hand, then offers it up. “Sorry, d’you want one?”

“No?”

“Is that a question, Morgan?”

“I’ve got a lot of questions.”

Zeke drops the smokes as if it’s somehow Matt’s loss, then slides them into his front pocket. “Probably for the best,” he says with a shrug. “You don’t want a drill sergeant catching that smell on you.”

“And you do?”

“I told you not to worry about me.”

Matt can’t help but laugh, even if he’s not quite sure where the humor comes from. Maybe it’s not humor at all. Maybe it’s something bigger, as he takes in the strangeness of the scene before him—Zeke sharing the company of dumpsters on an unkept hillside, avoiding the chapel entrance as though he feels a heat coming from it. Finally, one question bubbles up above the rest. “What are you doing out here?”

Zeke takes a long drag. Lets the smoke tumble back out in clouds. “Smoke break, Morgan,” he says. “And here I thought you were one of the more observant ones.”

“No,” Matt says. “I mean, what are _you_ doing out here?”

He flicks a loose ember to the ground with an unintentional movement that’s been practiced dozens, hundreds, thousands of times. “Can’t have you out here alone, now can we?” he says. “You needed a battle buddy back to the barracks, and Montgomery is freakishly good at rock-paper-scissors.”

“Yeah, Monty’s freakishly good at everything.” But this is an answer to a question that everyone already knows. Matt’s far more interested in the ones that ain’t quite so obvious. “You could’ve waited inside.”

“I wanted to give you some privacy.”

“So instead you came out to the side of the building where no one could see you.”

“Well how else is a guy supposed to have a smoke around here?”

“He’s not.” The day’s readings preached forgiveness, and it is for this reason and this reason alone that Matt hasn’t already lost his temper. “Makes a guy wonder what else you might get up to when no one’s looking.”

Matt’s heard enough of the gospel to sense an angel’s wrath when he sees it. Zeke is far from angelic, but he seems to have _ethereal fury_ tucked pretty securely in his back pocket. “It does make a guy wonder, doesn’t it?” he says. “Of course, it’s real easy to wonder about the wrong things, isn’t it, Morgan?”

It’s another steady huff of the cigarette, but this time, Zeke is smiling with the smoke as he sends a puff right into Matt’s face. Matt doesn’t give him any sort of satisfaction. “And just what in the Hell does that mean?”

There’s a moment of careful consideration before Zeke ultimately falls back to his spot against the wall. He takes one more hit of his cigarette before he tosses it to the ground and grinds it with the toe of his boot. “It means you don’t know half of what you think you do,” he says. “And the half you do know is the wrong half.”

“Is it in your blood to be cryptic as all get out, or is that just something you do for fun?”

“I’m walking away now.” True to his word, Zeke pops himself upright and starts down a path toward the barracks, wholly unconcerned with whatever it is Matt has left to say. “You can come with me now, or you can explain to the drill sergeants why you missed your afternoon cleaning shift.”

“I wasn’t done,” Matt calls out.

Zeke doesn’t break his stride. “No you’re not,” he says over his shoulder. “But I sure as fuck am.”

It reminds Matt of that very first day, filled with chaos and unease and more yelling than he had ever known. He’s slow to the start, and Zeke is already well ahead of him with no signs of slowing. Matt himself has never been much of a runner, but in that moment, as the sun beats down on them both, he realizes that Zeke absolutely is.

He adds a few more prayers to the list, hoping that God’s reach extends just a little bit farther outside of the chapel walls, and then he follows.


	11. Chapter 11

When he was back on the ranch, cleaning started on Saturday and it started at dawn. In comparison, Sunday afternoon feels like a walk in the park. The workload is divided into thirty-two parts and, if he pays close enough attention throughout the rest of the week, he can usually snag one of the easier jobs. Not that there are many truly hard jobs. There’s no manure to scoop up, no grass to cut, and not even the sharpest drill sergeant can rival his mama’s keen eye for cleanliness.

A lot of things got harder once he arrived at Fort Jackson. Cleaning, to his surprise, got easier.

He lets the rare freedom wash over him—lets himself soak in the streaks left behind by the back and forth of the mop. Humming gold fluorescence shines against sparkling tile and Matt finds unexpected solace in the one-two, one-two stroke of stained strings. It’s not quite silence, but there is a certain peace in the loneliness as the rest of his platoon is scattered toward chores of their own. His only company is a bucket of sloshing water, as he fights the relentless desire to use his handle as a lightsaber.

He lets slip a faint _vwhoom_ as he weaves his way between closets and bedposts. Then another. He wonders if Rebel soldiers have a Basic Training requirement, or if they can just hop in an X-Wing on their very first day.

Did Luke Skywalker ever scrub the barracks?

The mop lands with a heavy splash into greyed water, and he squeezes out every last drip, drip, drip. Wood grinds against calluses that he can no longer feel. His shoulders scream out a song that he can no longer hear and the weight of the past eight weeks washes away. He’s so near the end that he can practically smell his mama’s pork roast and honey mashed potatoes from right where he stands.

It’s all waiting for him—all that fresh corn, and a pumpkin pie. Crisp, clean apples from Stuarts’ Orchard and pan-fried zucchini until his stomach bursts. It’s the smell of cornbread as it soaks into sunshiny paneling. It’s the comfort of shag beneath his bare feet. It’s his bed, and his books, and the old pickup truck that he had to leave behind with no more than a quarter tank of gas. The everyday seems so present to him now, even more so than when he was actually living it.

And maybe he does get carried away. Maybe the world around him fades in favor of a richer, kinder, far more delicious reality. This tile reminds him of the hardware store and the soap smells like his mama’s laundry room. Matt’s never had a whole lot to say on the topic of homesickness, but after these last few months, he’s collected enough words to write novels; emptiness, longing, and a warmth so distant that it only amplifies the cold.

Homesickness is the kind of feeling that eats a person whole, a little bit at first and then all at once. So it really ain’t his fault that he loses some of his newfound militant focus. It ain’t his fault that his mind leaves the motions of the mop behind. And he swears that it’s not purposeful when he knocks open the closet door.

All of the closets in the barracks are shared between bunkmates. Matt and Monty have mastered the morning dance that seems required of recruits, shuffling between shoes and shirts until each of them is standing at attention by the end of their bunk. But not everyone has gotten it down to such an exact science and this particular closet, Matt knows, is victim to an especially egregious case of AM incompatibility.

Because this particular closet is shared between Fitz and Zeke.

For the two of them, mornings are less like a dance and more like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Each of them takes, and takes, and takes, with no great regard for the other. There is no compromise, there is no _excuse me_. Instead, their routine is mostly made up of elbows, and grumbles, and no small number of threats involving Texas’ stance on capital punishment. 

It ain’t a tussle that Matt has any interest getting involved with, so he truly does intend to shut the door and leave everything the way he found it.

But it ain’t his fault that a folded up slip of paper tumbles out onto the floor.

He stares at the stark white sheet for a little too long. One corner has already soaked up some of the mop water, and there’s dirt collecting around the edges. It’s not quite crumpled, but it is well handled. The creases are uneven, as though it’s been folded over itself time and time again. 

The part of him that grew up in rural Nebraska knows that it’s poor manners to leave it. The part of him that has spent any time with either Fitz or Zeke—or, much more fatally, Fitz _and_ Zeke—knows that it’s best to let it be. The two sides duel at the forefront of his mind until his sensibilities finally get the best of him. His mama raised him right, after all.

The paper feels granular in his hands, soggy and somehow scratchy. It’s too thick. Or maybe too light. Something about it feels unexpected against his fingertips, although he quickly learns that this is only the beginning of the strangeness. When he peels open the page, his heart drops down to his stomach, inch by inch, and his ears plug up at the drums. His breath catches and, once again, he finds himself with more questions than he knows what to do with.

Because there are two words written out on that simple little note, as dangerous as a storm brewing over a prairie.

_Matthew Morgan._

Matt’s seen his own name plenty of times in plenty of different handwritings. He’s seen it in his own hand, written in assignment margins and at the tops of tests. He’s seen it in his mama’s hand, with her doctor’s notes and her Christmas cards. And he’ll never forget the time he saw it up on the chalkboard in second grade—his one and only warning for acting a fool during lunch. 

But he ain’t never seen it like this before. Every letter stands tall, blocky and scratched. He can hardly recognize it, but it’s unmistakable. It lacks context, and care, and information. He’s never seen his name without a reason. He flips the paper over once, then again, but it’s starting to fall apart at the creases now and Matt can’t seem to read the rest of a letter that’s addressed to him.

He’s so absorbed in the note that he doesn’t hear the voices until they’re already too close. “Yes sir.” Someone is just down the hall, footsteps getting closer. “I’ll have a decision for you by this evening.”

Then, a gruffer voice, not much further away. “I sure hope you do, son,” he says, and Matt instantly recognizes Cooper’s twang. “R’else I reckon this whole thing will have been a waste of everyone’s time.”

“Yes sir,” says the other one. “No one wants that.”

Cooper sniffs. “Least of all you,” he says, “ _Ezekiel._ ”

And, well. That’s just bad timing, is what that is.

Matt ain’t usually one for snooping. Sure, he and his mama sometimes gossip about the goings-on around town. Occasionally he shares the front porch with his pops. But nothing in his nineteen years of life has prepared him for this moment, nearly caught dead to rights by someone who shares the same disposition as a breeding bull. 

But the paper is somehow falling to shreds in his hands, and the footsteps are getting closer, closer, closer. Above him, the lights seem to buzz a little louder and the walls crawl inward. He’s gone from a lightsaber duel to a trash compactor in a matter of minutes, and he doesn’t have an R2 unit to save him.

So he does the next best thing: Matthew Morgan swallows his pride, gets down on his back, and hides under the nearest bed.

No sooner does he hear the last creak of the bed frame than he hears a pair of Army-issued boots enter the room. All at once, the lights are quiet, and the space feels so, so silent.

His first instinct is to hold his breath, but he fights against it. Instead, he pulls in short, shallow breaths and lets them back out so slowly that his chest might collapse. There’s an unsteady rise and fall beneath his huddled up hands, every muscle strung tight against their tendons. He’s spent so many nights staring at the underside of Monty’s top bunk and, even though the bottom bunk is made up of the same gridded pattern, it still looks entirely different.

The last of the paper turns to mush in his hands, melting into his shirt until it dissolves entirely. It leaves a faint stick on his fingers and Matt wonders what the Hell kind of paper Zeke uses, anyway.

Admittedly, now doesn’t seem like the best time to ask.

Zeke has collected a handful of scuff marks along the heels of his boots throughout the day, which Matt only knows because they are currently six inches from his face. His laces are starting to stain and there’s a little bit of stretching along the inner edge. It’s a careful, graceful walk around the bed and Matt’s breaths grow impossibly more shallow.

The closet opens. Papers rustle. Matt squeezes his eyes shut because he isn’t able to cover his ears. Despite any efforts to the contrary, he can’t help but totally hold his breath now, and he finds himself praying for a second time on a Sunday.

Zeke takes a step back. Then forward. Then back again. The closet door shuts without so much as a sound and Matt watches the boots as they make their way back out of the barracks. He listens to the footsteps echo further and further away, but he can’t quite tell when they’re out of earshot. He thinks that maybe the coast is clear, but then he hears another one. Or maybe his mind is making up noises. He can’t be sure.

So he waits. He waits, and he waits, and he waits some more until he’s sure that Zeke couldn’t possibly be around. Maybe it’s ten minutes. Maybe it’s twenty. It’s enough time that his tail bone starts to pinch, and he remembers why grownups don’t play hide and seek anymore.

It’s harder to crawl back out than it was to crawl under, although the hours spent on the obstacle courses serve him surprisingly well in this moment. He shuffles his shoulders until his hips are free and clear and he can roll over into a standing position. It’s just a quick swipe of dust from his pants, and he thanks the Lord for a bullet dodged.

That is, until he turns around.

Zeke seems to materialize out of nowhere, as though silence and stealth were bred into his very soul. Matt jumps, but Zeke doesn’t move a muscle—maintains absolute control as he stares Matt down. It strikes him in that moment that Zeke isn’t only mysterious. He’s frightening.

His eyes look down at Matt’s shirt, knowing. “I see you found my note,” he says. Then, his eyes flick back up to Matt. “That wasn’t meant for you.”

There are plenty of things that Matt could say in response to this. At the same time, there are plenty of things that Matt doesn’t say. He doesn’t have the chance. Because before either of them can get another word out, Matt has already hurdled through the empty bunk bed and started to run.


	12. Chapter 12

It doesn’t take long for Matt to realize that he’s made a critical miscalculation. Before he even makes it out of the barracks, he remembers a fact that he already knew: he is an _exceptionally_ awful runner.

So in the case of fight or flight, Matt is probably more equipped to start throwing punches than he is to bolt down a narrow hallway, but that realization isn’t much help in the current moment. Zeke is right on his tail and closing in quick. Matt’s going to have to start using his brains, or else they’re bound to get beaten out of him.

He plows through the nearest set of doors and narrowly avoids tripping over his own two feet. He has to keep moving through the stumble as he glances over his shoulder to spot Zeke’s impeccable form. Matt’s throat is starting to scratch, and his lungs are starting to stretch. He can’t help but roll his eyes. “Is he freaking _bionic_?” he huffs to no one in particular.

The sky above them is cast in a striking golden orange, the clouds outlined in lavender, and it’s the kind of thing that might stop him where he stands if the circumstances weren’t quite so saturated with a potential asskicking. The mountains cradle a soft sun as the evening comes too early. The air is crisp with the threat of winter. Fall will end soon enough, and sunsets like this one will surrender to grey skies.

“Morgan.” Zeke calls out his name across the field, his sprint dying down, but he doesn’t stop completely. Matt gets the impression that Zeke could run all day if he had to. Maybe he could run forever. “Just slow the hell down, would you?”

“Fat chance,” Matt calls over his shoulder, and he takes off even faster than before. If Zeke’s gonna beat the Hell out of him, then he at least has to work for it.

Zeke says something else, but Matt can’t hear him over the crunch of his feet on gravel. Through some kind of instinct, or training, or both, Matt finds himself at the base of Fort Jackson’s hardest obstacle course with only one plan in mind: get as far away as possible.

He doesn’t have time to think, and so he doesn’t. He lets the sunset fade into the background and ignores the sound of Zeke’s boots fast approaching. He takes a breath in. Then a breath out. And he grabs hold of the rope hanging at the edge of the course.

Matt can’t count the number of times he has climbed this very rope. It used to take him so long—the footing was tricky, and it was about three times thicker than anything he ever had to climb in gym class. He couldn’t get the grip down and it was always near the end of the course, when he was sweaty and out of breath. When his arms felt like plastic and he couldn’t even strain to look up.

These days, he can climb it with ease. The rope still pricks at his hands, and his legs still burn on the way up, but somehow it’s gotten easier. Or maybe Matt has just gotten stronger. Either way, it’s a quick escape, and he even has the sense of mind to bring the bottom of the rope with him as he makes his way straight to the top.

In no time at all, Matt’s looking twenty feet toward the ground where Zeke stands without his own rope to climb. “Morgan,” he barks. “What in the hell do you think you’re gonna do up there?”

Matt doesn’t answer. He merely twists his hands up further in the rope and asks a question of his own. “Why did you have my name written out on that paper?”

“Jesus fuck, would you just—?” His hands fall to his hips now, and he squints against what little sun is left. “Come down here and have a discussion like a goddamn civilized human being.”

“Why,” Matt tries again, “did you write my name on that weird paper?”

“I’m serious,” Zeke says. “Do you want a drill sergeant to come out here and find you like that?”

“If you bring a drill sergeant out here, I swear I’ll tell them that you were smoking behind the chapel.”

“I’m not going to—” But Zeke doesn’t finish the thought. He just shakes his head. Pinches the bridge of his nose. When he looks back up, he’s got his hand across his forehead, blocking the sun, and it makes him look a little less angry. But only a little. “You don’t know anything, do you, Morgan?”

Matt’s hands are starting to cramp, no matter how many times he shifts his grip on the rope. “I know something’s been off about you since day one,” he says, adjusting his feet. “What’s your deal, Zeke? Are you some kind of super-soldier? A science experiment gone wrong? Are you a communist?”

Along the forest’s shadowed edge, the frogs are starting to croak and the crickets are starting to chirp. “A communist,” he says, flat. “You really think I’m a communist.”

“I don’t know what you are,” Matt says, and his feet are slipping now, too. “But I ain’t coming down until you start talkin’ sense.”

Zeke lets his hand fall to his side once more, looking up at Matt with a sigh. “And just how long do you think you’re gonna last up there?” he says. “I can see you shaking from here.”

“Then I guess you’ll be doing us both a favor if you talk quickly.”

“Or I can just wait you out. It’s been too long since I last saw someone fall on their ass.”

“You’re gonna be waiting a while.”

“I don’t have anywhere else to be,” Zeke says, and he starts leaning up against the tall, wooden supports like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Matt, on the other hand, feels a bead of sweat roll down his temple. “You take your sweet time.”

It’s a wager that Matt imagines Zeke comes to regret over the next twenty minutes. Powered by the strength of sheer adrenalin, Matt keeps shifting his weight, getting creative with how he holds himself up. He’s able to give his hands a break while he sacrifices his quads. Then his shoulders take the brunt while he eases up on his ankles. It’s one shift, after another, after another and he hurts. He hurts like he’s never hurt before.

He manages to pull himself from the rope and balance himself atop the 4-by-4 from which it hangs. Over time, Zeke stops his leaning and slides down into the dirt, fiddling with any stone he can get his fingers on. Both of them wait. Just wait. Matt’s not entirely sure of what they’re waiting for. Around them, the shadows grow taller and taller until the evening takes on a greyscale twilight and it’s just a little bit harder to see the world.

He watches Zeke from above. Dark hair blows in the autumn breeze. Shoulders sit with a perfect posture up against the post. There’s plenty of fussing and fidgeting, unable to keep still, and Matt wonders if that’s the sort of restlessness that a guy is born with, or if it’s the kind that one acquires over time. Zeke has always felt like a puzzle to him, constantly urging him to put all of the parts together and make one complete picture. Only now, watching over him, does Matt realize he doesn’t even have all of the pieces yet.

When he speaks, Zeke doesn’t get up. He doesn’t even look toward Matt. He just keeps rolling the latest stone between his fingertips. “You’re stubborn, Morgan, I’ll give you that,” he says. Then, after some consideration, “And _strong_. How are you even still up there?”

Matt shrugs out of habit, and he nearly bites it, but he catches himself one more time. “S’mostly balance at this point,” he says. “But my legs have completely fallen asleep. We honestly might have to amputate at this point.”

“How were you planning to get down without any legs?”

“Well, you see, my arms are totally ripped, and they’d have 30 less pounds to carry.”

“I see,” says Zeke. “Forgive me, I failed to take your _totally jacked_ arms into account.”

“Totally _ripped_ , Ezekiel,” Matt corrects. “Please, get it right. I’m ripped, not jacked. Mostly in the biceps.”

“Is there a difference?”

“I dunno,” Matt admits to the ground. “Seems like there should be, right?”

“Maybe.”

“Hey Zeke?” The stone freezes in Zeke’s anxious hands. Even from his spot above, Matt can see the deliberation—the debate that always seems present in his head. There’s caution in his movements when Zeke finally looks up in response. Matt almost hesitates to ask, because he’s not sure he wants to know anymore. “Why was my name on that piece of paper?”

It’s getting harder and harder to see one another’s features. Shadows and outlines are beginning to give way to darkness, and Matt is starting to shake again, this time for the cold. One way or another, he’s going to have to come back down soon, so he really hopes that Zeke answers this time.

But he doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. Because Zeke doesn’t answer anything he doesn’t want to. “That’s not my name,” he says instead.

Matt groans. “Yeah, I know,” he says. “Your name is Ezekiel, but everyone else has a cool nickname, so I don’t see what the big deal is—”

“No,” he says, quieter this time. Matt’s at the very top of the rope and Zeke is at the very bottom. They couldn’t be farther away from one another, and yet Matt still feels like they’re whispering from mere inches away. “My name is Joe.”

And it sends up that _feeling_. The same one he had at the very start of Basic Training. The one he doesn’t have the language for. His shoulders feel more rounded and the hairs on his neck stand upright. “Joe… Ezekiel?” he says. “It’s your last name, isn’t it?”

Zeke—or, maybe, _Joe_ —stands up from his place on the ground, swiping the backs of his legs clean of dust. When he looks back up at Matt, there’s no jest in him. No lying. Matt gets the impression that, for the first time, he’s seeing something genuine.

“My name is Joe Solomon,” he says. “And _your_ name was on that slip of paper because I was planning to recruit you.”

Matt’s life used to make a lot more sense on the farm. Everything was easier. There was a list of chores he was responsible for, he had to get his schoolwork done on time, and sometimes Mr. Wilson would have him help a customer load the car. It never got much harder than that. Hay Springs was simple, by every definition of the word.

So far, South Carolina has yelled at him, fed him terrible food, gassed him, and made him do far more pushups than any young man should ever have to do in a single lifetime. And now, on one of the final nights of his final week, someone goes and changes their name on him. “Sweet Jesus,” he says, and he can’t stop a little bit of laughter from coming through. “You _are_ a communist, aren’t you?”

Zeke, Joe, Whatever-His-Name-Is, just hangs his head. Lets out a long breath. He opens his mouth to say something else, but he’s stopped before he can even start.

“Gentlemen.” It’s a booming voice that settles in the most regrettable parts of Matt’s nightmares, and this time it doesn’t even come with the chirp of a whistle as a warning. Matt turns ever so carefully to see Drill Sergeant Cooper, standing in the distance with his arms crossed firmly over his chest. “I reckon it’s time we had a talk, don’t you?”


	13. Chapter 13

Cooper’s office is smaller than Matt might have expected, wedged along a windowless hallway that he’s never ventured down before. Daylight is replaced by unforgiving fluorescence and the room is filled to the edges with filing cabinets, paper piles, and a tobacco stench that settles into the stale grey carpet. Joe makes himself at home, fully falling into a chair as though his name (his real name) is written across it. Without any hesitation, he dares to prop his feet atop Drill Sergeant Cooper’s desk, one crossed over the other, and leans back onto the chair’s two hind legs.

On his way in, the drill sergeant swats at Joe’s boots and he lands with a _thud_. “Son,” he warns. “If you’d like to keep your feet, you best not put your shoes on my table again.”

Joe melts into the bottom of his seat. “Yes sir,” he says.

Matt’s still standing in the doorway as Cooper takes a seat of his own, not sure of what his next steps are. He’s halfway expecting Copper to send Joe down to a pushup position and start counting, but it doesn’t come. The two of them just look back up at Matt like he’s the one who calls the shots. “Are you going to stand there all day, Morgan?” Joe asks over his shoulder. “Or maybe you plan on taking a seat sometime in the near future?”

It does seem like the only available option, but Matt’s still adjusting to the sight of the toughest recruit he knows sitting with complete ease in the office of the toughest drill sergeant he knows. A part of him wonders if this might be a test—some sort of initiation process that his pops never warned him about.

Cooper leans forward at his desk, no nonsense in his expression. “The sooner we get to talkin’,” he says, “the sooner we can get to explaining.”

And that makes just enough sense to get him through the door, but he’ll need a lot more convincing to stay. He’s ten different kinds of tentative as he takes the seat next to Joe. It’s a wide, orange, scratchy chair, and it almost feels hot. “Sir,” he says. “Before you start yelling, just let me say that this was all my doing. I was snooping around in Zeke’s stuff and he had every right to—”

“I ain’t gonna yell, son,” Cooper says. “You’re not in trouble. Just the opposite, in fact—unless you think you’ve got something to be in trouble about?”

Matt can’t help it. He gulps. Actually, audibly gulps. “Figure that I shouldn’t press my luck, then, sir.”

“Attaboy,” says Cooper. It’s strange to see him without the sunglasses and the whistle. In this light, he looks a little less like a drill sergeant and a little more like a human being. “When in doubt, you just keep your trap shut. That’ll serve you well.”

Matt’s got enough doubt to fill a barn to the rafters, so he doesn’t say another word. Someone else needs to do the talking, and they better have a lot to say.

Cooper, to his credit, takes this as his cue. “How much do you know about the war, Morgan?”

It’s a direct question from a superior, and this at least feels like familiar territory. “My father served just outside of Saigon for six years.”

“I ain’t talking about ‘Nam,” Cooper tells him. It seems like an absentminded gesture when he digs around in a drawer and pulls out a palm full of sunflower seeds. He pops them in his mouth, a couple at a time. “I’m talkin’ Berlin. Or the USSR. I’m talking about the Cold War.”

It’s a simple phrase, but it’s laced with memories of news broadcasts and paper headlines. It reminds him of Cronkite’s voice in his family’s living room, reporting on communism, and congressmen, and a great, big Iron Curtain. He knows about the Wall and the wiretapping. He knows about Cuba, and the Space Race, and the inescapable shade of red. But despite its name, it’s never felt like a war. Not in the same way that Vietnam did. “I suppose I know just about the same as everyone else, sir.”

Beneath his big, bushy mustache, Matt sees Drill Sergeant Cooper smile. “Well you’re about to know a lot more,” he says, with another toss of the sunflower seeds. “Your daddy did us a great service—you ain’t gonna see me denying that one bit. But the truth is that he didn’t finish the job.”

Matt doesn’t take too kindly to folks who speak ill of his pops’ service. But as an Army man himself, he gives Cooper the chance to explain before he loses his cool entirely. “My pops is a hero.”

“Ain’t nothing truer,” Cooper says. “I won’t pretend Vietnam was anything less than Hell on Earth. But there were two wars happening during the time of his service, and he was fighting in the smaller one. Now I’m asking you to fight in the bigger one.”

And he doesn’t know what’s in the water around here, that makes everyone speak in code. “Due respect, sir,” he says. “But what’s that mean for me?”

Joe’s just beside him, losing patience. His foot is tapping. His fingers are fidgeting. “We’re Army Intelligence, Morgan,” he says, and it comes out like a well spout that ain’t been pumped in a good while. “Intercepting signals, collecting information, translating—”

“I _know_ what Army Intelligence means.”

“Then you know,” Cooper cuts in again, taking charge of the situation once more. He cuts Joe a look of warning, and Joe seems to settle ever so slightly. It won’t last long. “You know that there are a number of different ways to fight a war. ‘Nam ended in a bloodbath, and it was fought in the trenches. This next war is going to be fought in the shadows, and I need men who can navigate them.”

Matt waits for more elaboration. He watches Cooper, hanging on his every word, certain that there must be more to the speech. When it doesn’t come, he turns to Joe, but there’s no more to be said there, either. It leaves him as the only remaining speaker, but he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say. “And you think”—he laughs, a quick huff—”that I’m one of those men?”

They don’t share his laughter.

Cooper finishes off his sunflower seeds in one single toss of the hand. He wipes his palms clean of the salt and looks Matt straight in the eye. “I’ve spent the last few years scouring Boot Camps in an attempt to find smart, talented young men to grow out our ranks,” he says. Then he nods in Joe’s direction. “Joe acts as my eyes and ears on the ground to see how you boys behave when there’s not a drill sergeant breathin’ down your neck.”

Joe gives a wink and a lazy salute at the mention of his name. Matt doesn’t entertain the sight. Cooper goes on without any acknowledgement. “Together, we determine who has what it takes to make the leap into intelligence. Based on his test scores, we suspected Steven Fitzgerald might make the cut, but…”

Cooper turns back to Joe, as if finally giving him permission to speak. Joe leans back even further in his chair, crosses his arms over his chest, and gives Matt a once over. “But Fitz doesn’t have what it takes,” he says. “And you do.”

It ain’t perfect, but it’s a start. Slowly, he can see a bigger picture starting to come into focus. “Fitz is smarter than me by a country mile,” he says. “He’d be great in intelligence.”

Joe shrugs. “Maybe so,” he says. “Maybe we consider him in another year, when deployment sombers him up. But right now he’s full of himself, and his physical skills are pathetic. He cashes in on his father’s power _way_ too often and he’s a shit team player. Test scores don’t mean anything if you can’t handle a little teargas.”

More and more in focus. Slowly, then quicker. “You’re the one who knocked Fitzy’s mask off that day in the shed.”

Joe studies him, just for the smallest moment. “Pieced that one together quick,” he says. “That’s not bad.”

Cooper takes control again, pulling all of Matt’s attention now. “That’s what we’re talking ‘bout, Morgan,” he says. “You’ve got the instinct and you’ve got the talent. I’ve spent years recruiting boys with half of what you’ve got. And it’s your choice of course—it ain’t gonna be easy—but this is a great opportunity, and your country sure could use you.”

Matt’s been completely and totally disoriented on exactly three occasions in his life. The first was when he learned an important lesson about standing behind a horse while brushing its tail. The second was an unfortunate mishap with a rogue curveball. This is the third. Given that the first two were cases of blunt force trauma, he’s surprised to find that this one feels no different. “So,” Matt begins, carefully. He’s not quite able to catch his breath. “What happens if I say yes? I sign some papers and we start doing some Man from U.N.C.L.E. stuff?”

Cooper and Joe turn to each other, not quite surprised, but not quite straight either. “Man from U.N.C.L.E,” says Cooper. “That’s an unusual one.”

Joe nods. “Usually they go straight for Bond.”

“You don’t start with Man from U.N.C.L.E,” Cooper explains, turning back to Matt. “You’ve got room for growth—especially considerin’ your potential. But you’ll start behind a desk, doin’ the most god-awful boring work you’ve ever done in your life. And before that, your first year is a whole lot more training than you ever got here. You’ll become an expert in a language, you’ll spend hours listenin’ to conversations that don’t mean a thing, and then you’ll report on them to folks who’ve got bigger problems on their mind.”

The thought of more training twists at Matt’s insides. He’s not even through this one yet, and he’s pretty sure it nearly killed him. “Honestly, Drill Sergeant,” he says. “That ain’t your best recruitment speech.”

Cooper nods, like he already knows. “Ain’t interested in lying to you, son,” he says. “You choose this path and it’s going to be a hard one. Your life is gonna feel stalled for a long time, and you’ll be so deep in Russian that you’ll forget what English sounds like. You won’t be able to tell your family what you’re doing, and you’ll be lucky to see them once a year.”

For reasons he doesn’t know, Matt looks to Joe in this moment. Maybe he wants to know if Cooper is telling the truth. Maybe he wonders about Joe’s family, and how often he sees them. Or maybe—most likely—he wants to see Zeke again, and he wants to trust him.

“But,” Cooper says. “If you want to make a real difference, and serve your country in a way that your daddy could only dream of, you say the word. I’m sure you’ll do plenty of good in the ranks, babysitting some Viet Cong or manning the Korean border. But you’ve got the skills to be somethin’ great—somethin’ we _need_ right now, Morgan, more than we ever did before.”

Matt recalls his flag waving in the wind, and a sense of uncertain pride. His country ain’t perfect. Not by a long shot. But he loves it. God, does he ever love it, and if he has the opportunity to make it even a little bit better, then he wants to take it.

There’s a level of softness to Cooper that feels entirely out of place. It’s such a stark contrast to his first experience with a drill sergeant, rushing him off a bus. “It ain’t a decision that’s got to be made today,” he says. “Finish out the week. Graduate. Go home and see your mama, and open up some Christmas presents.”

“Yes, Drill Sergeant.”

“I’d like to hear from you in the new year.”

“Yes, Drill Sergeant.”

“And Matthew,” he says, and it’s so absurd to hear his name in this place. “You ain’t crazy, to be nervous about this. But that don’t mean you can’t do it.”

Cooper sits back, reaching one more time for the sunflower seeds. Joe pops upright in his seat, as impatient as ever. He looks like he needs a smoke. “We done here?”

And as soon as Cooper says, “You’re dismissed,” Joe is up and out of that tiny office like he’s got business to attend to elsewhere.

Matt follows his lead, even if he’s a little slower. Something that’s not quite dizziness settles in his bones as he starts to walk out, but the doorway catches him. He looks back to Cooper one more time. “How’s this end?” he asks.

Cooper studies him. “How’s what end?”

“This war,” Matt says. “You said ‘Nam ended in a bloodbath. How’s the Cold War end?”

It’s a chuckle this time, tired and worn. All of this is new to Matt, but Cooper’s been in this for years, and he wears it on his shoulders. “It’s a good question,” he says. “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you how this war ends anymore than I can tell you how my own life does—or yours, for that matter. But I can tell you what we wanna avoid.”

“And what’s that?”

Cooper sits back up, leans in over his desk one final time, as though he’s letting Matt in on one of the world’s larger secrets. For all Matt knows, maybe he is. “Son, what we’re workin’ against is a bomb so big, it’ll make God’s wrath look like a pinprick.”

It’s Matt’s turn to laugh now, but there’s nothing funny about this conversation. “Have you ever seen God’s wrath, Drill Sergeant?”

“I fought in Korea,” he says. “I reckon I might have, somewhere along the way.”

“The way I understand it, it’s the kind of thing you know when you see.”

“Way I understand it, it’s not something you wanna see in the first place.”

“Yeah,” Matt agrees. “Yeah, maybe that’s right.”

Basic Training doesn’t have many quiet moments. There’s plenty of yelling and screaming. Plenty of guys who don’t shut up. There’s gunfire, and whistles, and enough guys hitting the mat to form a symphony. So it’s worth paying attention to, when the sound suddenly stops. Usually the things worth listening to, don’t have much noise about them at all.

Cooper doesn’t let the silence linger for too long. “Enjoy your holidays, Morgan.”

And Matt just nods, because sometimes there ain’t much left to say. “And a Happy New Year to you, Drill Sergeant.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading Full Circle: 1978. Matt's story doesn't end here. Keep an eye out for Full Circle: 1980, coming soon!


End file.
